Pathanamthitta (Keralam), Oct 31 CCTV footage purportedly showing a group of Youth Congress workers assaulting a YouTuber inside a police station in Keralam in July has surfaced, prompting the CPI(M) to demand action against those allegedly involved.
The visuals, aired by television channels on Saturday, appeared to show Youth Congress workers manhandling YouTuber Rajan Joseph while he was in police custody at Adoor police station.
The footage appeared to show Congress leader Sreena Devi Kunjamma, who had lodged a complaint against Joseph, entering the police station and confronting him.
Joseph was arrested by the Adoor police in July following a complaint by Kunjamma, a Congress district panchayat member, alleging that he had posted defamatory content about her on social media.
The incident occurred on July 11, when Joseph was brought to the police station after being arrested in Kochi.
The Adoor police subsequently registered a case against around 20 people, among them Youth Congress workers, over an alleged attempt to assault Joseph while he was being brought to the station.
Following the emergence of the footage, CPI(M) leaders here demanded stringent action against Kunjamma and Youth Congress leaders, including Fenny Nainan, alleging that the visuals showed Joseph being assaulted and intimidated inside the police station.
CPI(M) leaders reportedly obtained the footage from the police station under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. However, Youth Congress leaders, with Fenny Nainan among them, denied that any assault had taken place.
Nainan told a television channel that they had gone to the police station only to protest after learning of Joseph’s arrest and had not manhandled him.
Responding to questions from reporters on Saturday, Kunjamma denied any misconduct at the police station, saying she had visited it only to identify Joseph as the accused in the case.
She maintained that she had neither entered the lock-up nor threatened Joseph, adding that she had merely asked him, “Are you doing well?” while standing outside the cell.
Soon after Joseph’s arrest in July, Kunjamma had claimed in a Facebook post that the YouTuber had repeatedly challenged the police to arrest him before he was taken into custody.
She had said Joseph was brought to Adoor police station at around 10.30 pm and that she had seen him sitting on the floor of a lock-up cell.
“I spoke to him briefly, introduced myself, and then left,” she had said in the post.
(PTI News)
