Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has launched a public petition demanding justice for journalists Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, who have alleged that they were unlawfully detained, assaulted and intimidated by police personnel inside Delhi’s Saket Police Station on September 3, 2026.
The petition, addressed to Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar, IPS, calls for the immediate registration of an FIR against the police personnel named by the journalists, preservation of CCTV footage, an independent investigation and appropriate criminal and departmental action against those found responsible.
The two Muslim women journalists were reporting in Saket on September 3, around the inauguration of a new wing of Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital, an event attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. According to their account, they were stopped while reporting and subsequently taken to Saket Police Station. What followed, they allege, went far beyond any legitimate policing of a public event.
The sisters have stated that their phones were taken, that they were threatened with an FIR and lock-up, and that they were physically assaulted inside the police station. Shaheen Khan has named Saket SHO Dinesh Kumar and women police personnel Sonam Solanki and Renuka Chaudhary among those allegedly involved. The journalists have also identified areas inside the police station, including the reception area, corridors and staircase, where they say the alleged violence occurred.
Their allegations include being slapped, punched and kicked, having their hair and clothes pulled, being dragged upstairs and being subjected to baton blows. They have further alleged that the situation took a communal turn after a police officer saw an incoming call displaying the name “Mohammad Khan” and made a remark concerning Shaheen’s Muslim identity. These are allegations that demand investigation, not dismissal.
The petition has drawn support from prominent voices across human rights, journalism, law, civil liberties, feminism, academia and the arts. Among those endorsing it are Brinda Karat, senior leader of the CPI(M) and former Rajya Sabha MP; Aruna Roy, social activist and founder member of MKSS; former judge Anjana Prakash; Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose; danseuse and feminist Mallika Sarabhai; writer and feminist activist Pamela Philipose; feminist and writer Syeda Hamid; former bureaucrat and citizens’ activist Aditi Mehta; Sujata Madhok of the Delhi Union of Journalists; writer, journalist and human rights activist Teesta Setalvad of CJP; journalist and writer Ghazala Wahab; feminist activist Shabnam Hashmi; journalist and Free Speech Collective co-editor Geeta Seshu; artist Shakuntala Kulkarni; civil liberties activist Sandhya Gokhale; queer feminist activist Chayanika Shah; women’s rights activist Manisha Gupte; social activist Anjali Bharadwaj; journalist and writer Bhasha Singh; PUCL organising secretary Vertika Mani; and journalists Revati Lal, Sabah Gurmat and Tabassum Barnagarwala, among others. Their collective endorsement underscores the wider concern over allegations of police violence against journalists and the urgent need for transparent institutional accountability.
The CCTV footage cannot be allowed to disappear
A central concern raised by CJP is that potentially decisive evidence is already within the control of the police establishment. The journalists have identified CCTV cameras and specific locations inside Saket Police Station that may have captured their detention and the alleged assault. They have also undergone medical examination and reported injuries. Other records could corroborate the circumstances of the incident, including station diary entries, duty rosters, PCR records, medical and medico-legal records, and the identities of personnel present at the police station.
CJP is therefore demanding the immediate preservation and securing of all relevant CCTV footage, including footage covering the period before, during and after the incident. The petition specifically invokes the Supreme Court’s directions in Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh, concerning CCTV surveillance and accountability in police establishments. In Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh (2020), the Supreme Court issued detailed directions to ensure that CCTV cameras are installed and maintained across police stations as an essential safeguard against custodial violence and human rights violations. The Court directed that CCTV coverage extend to entry and exit points, corridors, reception areas, lock-ups, interrogation rooms and other parts of police stations, with audio-video recording and adequate storage of footage. It also placed responsibility on the SHO for maintaining and preserving CCTV data and directed oversight bodies to review footage for instances of human rights violations. Crucially, the Court recognised that a person alleging human rights violations has a right to have relevant CCTV footage secured and made available for investigation, underscoring that such footage is an important accountability mechanism under Article 21.
Preservation of evidence cannot wait for an investigation to begin. In a case where police personnel themselves are accused, the possibility of evidence being lost or compromised makes immediate preservation all the more critical.
A police denial cannot substitute for an investigation
The petition also raises a basic question of institutional accountability: who investigates allegations of police violence when the alleged perpetrators are themselves police personnel?
If the journalists violated a restriction or obstructed a VVIP movement, that can and should be established through records and evidence. If their detention was lawful, the legal basis for it should be identifiable. If they were assaulted inside the police station, CCTV footage, medical records and witness testimony can establish what happened. But allegations of police misconduct cannot be resolved simply by relying on a denial from the same institutional machinery whose personnel have been accused.
An investigation must be independent and impartial. Officers named in the complaint, or those directly subordinate to them, cannot be permitted to control the collection of evidence or influence witnesses.
Six days without an FIR
At the heart of CJP’s petition is the reported absence of an FIR against the police personnel named by the journalists, even after they submitted their complaint, identified possible CCTV evidence and underwent medical examinations. For CJP, this delay is not a minor administrative lapse. It raises a fundamental question of equal protection of the law.
The women should not have to repeatedly approach the police to persuade the police to investigate allegations against police personnel. The petition does not ask that guilt be presumed. It asks that the allegations be formally investigated and that evidence be secured before it is lost.
Journalism cannot be punished with violence
The incident also raises a larger concern about the shrinking space for journalists to question authority while reporting from the ground. Journalists may be subject to lawful restrictions. They may be asked to move away from restricted areas or comply with legitimate security arrangements. But none of this gives police personnel the authority to unlawfully detain, assault, threaten or humiliate them.
A police station cannot become a place where accountability ends because the alleged perpetrators are members of the police force. The petition therefore calls for criminal and departmental action against every police personnel found responsible for illegal detention, assault, intimidation, communal abuse, suppression or destruction of evidence, or other misconduct.
No uniform places anyone above the law.
CJP is urging individuals to endorse the petition by the evening of Monday, September 14, 2026, following which it will be released to the media and submitted, with signatures, to the authorities concerned. The demand is straightforward: register the FIR, preserve the evidence, investigate independently and hold those responsible accountable.
Justice for Shaheen and Nafisa Khan must not become another case where allegations of police violence disappear behind the walls of a police station.
The petition may be signed here: https://forms.gle/KXmzG5sf1JLqG9Cv7
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