Some protesting farmers are sexually harassing female reporters at the protests, Preeti Choudhry, Editor at India Today, has said. She said on Twitter that a ‘sizeable chunk of depraves’ are sexually harassing reporters and that others are letting it happen.
Preeti Choudhry said that her own team has enough such incidents to report. One Bhupender Chaudhry, a ‘proud Congressi’ as well as a member of the Bharat Kisan Union as per his Twitter bio, tried to justify the sexual harassment by saying that ‘news hungry reporters’ who attempt to ‘forcefully’ take news bytes should be prosecuted too.
It is not clear how a reporter doing his or her job, even if they go over the top, could ever justify sexually harassing them. Preeti Choudhry said that if someone does not want to give a ‘bite’, then they shouldn’t give but they should refrain from pinching their buttocks.
Meanwhile, even as the eight rounds of talks between the central government and the farmers’ union remained inconclusive, the demonstrators have stepped up their efforts to pressure the Centre into accepting their demands. A new protest site has come up at Gangaicha border in Rewari even as the protest in Manesar is gathering steam.
Until now, the Singhu border has been the protest site where the so-called farmers had camped in opposition to the newly introduced Farm Bills. The demonstrators have been stubbornly demanding the annulment of the three farm laws while the central government has said that the complete rollback of the laws is off the negotiation table.
