The Ugly Gag Press Order

A straightforward report or a mere tweet, it is becoming alarmingly easier to get journos arrested.

- Siddhartha Mishra

DILIP Kumar Sharma, a journalist in Mahasamund, Chhattisgarh, was unwell on the night of June 13 and had fallen asleep after taking medicines when, around midnight, his daughter Roli knocked on his door to tell him that three men were at the front door looking for him. Wearing only a vest and towel, Sharma reached his gallery to ask why he was being disturbed at this time in the night. “Thaane le jaa kar pooch taach karni hai (We have to take you to the police station for questioning),” one of them said.

It’s being alleged that after jumping a wall and seizing his phone, the cops took Sharma to the police station against his will, all the while abusing him and telling him that they were going to teach him a lesson. “Kalpana bhi nahi kar sakte the (I couldn’t have imagined)…,”he tells Outlook when asked if he had expected his reportage would lead to this chain of events. The report that irked the authorities so is quite straightforward: published on his website WebMorcha.com on June 8, the piece reports that close to 50 villages had faced a blackout for two days.