Six Days, One Unanswered Question: What happened to Shaheen and Nafisa Khan at Saket Police Station? Women journalists allege detention, assault and religious abuse after covering Delhi CM’s event while press bodies demand independent probe and CCTV preservation
11, Sep 2026 | CJP Team
Two women journalists, Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, have alleged that Delhi Police personnel detained, assaulted and subjected them to religious abuse at Saket Police Station after they went to cover an event attended by Union Home Minister and Delhi Chief Minister on September 3.
The journalists, who work with digital news platform 4PM News Network, say they were stopped while attempting to report on the event and ask questions to the Chief Minister, taken to Saket Police Station and beaten by police personnel, including women officers. Shaheen has further alleged that the assault intensified after a police officer realised that the sisters were Muslim, with the women alleging slaps, kicks, hair-pulling and baton blows during their detention.
Their allegations are supported, they say, by a detailed written complaint naming police personnel, photographs and videos showing injuries, medical examination and CCTV footage from the police station that they have sought to have preserved and examined.
What followed the alleged assault has become a second controversy in itself. The journalists say they had to remain at Saket Police Station for hours to pursue their complaint, while activists and political workers gathered outside the station in the early hours of September 4 demanding registration of an FIR. The complaint was eventually registered at around 3 am, according to 4PM News Network. The FIR is yet to be registered.
The incident has since triggered demands from some of the country’s leading press organisations for an independent investigation, preservation of CCTV footage and action against police personnel if the allegations are substantiated. The Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Network of Women in Media, India and Editors Guild of India have all raised concerns over the allegations and called for accountability.
The allegations now raise a fundamental question: what happened to two journalists after they were taken inside Saket Police Station—and why did it take pressure outside the station for their complaint to be registered?
September 3: From reporting an event to detention
On September 3, Shaheen and Nafisa were in Saket to cover the inauguration of a new wing at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital. The event was attended by Union Home Minister and Delhi Chief Minister. According to the journalists, the area around the hospital had been unusually cleaned and cleared ahead of the VIP visit. They began recording a short video questioning the sudden civic attention and contrasting the preparations for VIP movement with every day public services.
The journalists said police personnel objected to their recording. According to Shaheen’s written statement, officers attempted to take their phones, women police personnel were called, and the sisters were eventually placed in a police vehicle. They said they were initially told they would be dropped home but were instead taken to Saket Police Station. The journalists have also alleged that they were stopped when they attempted to ask questions during the event. Press organisations later said the women had been seeking to perform their journalistic duties and question the Chief Minister.
Delhi Police, however, offered a different account. It said the women had parked their scooter in a manner that obstructed the designated VVIP movement route and that they were repeatedly instructed to remove it and clear the route. According to the police, they refused and were taken to the police station for further enquiry. Police have rejected the allegation that the women were detained or assaulted for attempting to question the Chief Minister.
Inside Saket Police Station: Allegations of assault
The allegations made by Shaheen in her written complaint are detailed. She named Saket SHO Dinesh Kumar and women police personnel including Sonam Solanki and Renuka Chaudhary. According to her statement, the sisters were threatened with being placed in the lock-up and the SHO threatened to register multiple FIRs against them.
Shaheen alleges that when she asked what offence they had committed and said that they would cooperate, the threats continued. She further alleged that Solanki demanded her phone, snatched it when Shaheen questioned the basis for taking it, and slapped her. Nafisa was allegedly assaulted as well. The sisters said they were subsequently dragged through the station and taken upstairs.
Shaheen has alleged that the two were pulled by their hair and clothes, slapped, kicked and beaten with a baton. In an interview published by Alt News on September 7, she repeated substantially the same account, while photographs published with the report showed bruising on Nafisa’s leg and Shaheen’s upper arm. The allegations therefore go substantially beyond a dispute over access to a VVIP route or an improperly parked scooter. They concern what the journalists say occurred after they had already been taken into police custody.
The allegation of religious targeting
The most serious allegation concerns what Shaheen says happened after police became aware of her religious identity. According to her written statement, an incoming call on her forcibly seized phone displayed the name “Mohd. Khan”. Shaheen alleges that the officer saw the caller ID, realised she was Muslim and then remarked about giving her additional slaps and baton blows.
She repeated this allegation in her interview with Alt News, saying that the officer’s behaviour changed after identifying her as Muslim and that the assault intensified. She further alleged that other women constables were instructed to beat the sisters. The sisters gave a similar account in their September 6 interview with Nous Network. They alleged that they were beaten for roughly 30–40 minutes through slaps, kicks, hair-pulling and baton blows, and that the treatment became more severe after the officer allegedly realised they were Muslim.
The allegation has also been recorded by press organisations. The Network of Women in Media, India said the journalists had alleged that the assault intensified after police became aware that both women were Muslim and that religion-specific abuses were used. The Editors Guild of India similarly referred to allegations of abuse targeting their religion.
After the alleged assault: medical examination and the complaint
According to Shaheen’s statement, the sisters eventually returned to the reception area of the police station, where Nafisa collapsed. Shaheen alleges that police did not arrange for them to contact their family or obtain immediate medical assistance. The women eventually contacted relatives and called the police control room. They were taken to hospital and underwent medical examination before returning to the police station to pursue their complaint.
The injuries subsequently became part of the public record surrounding the allegations. Videos circulated after the incident showed injury marks, while photographs reported by Alt News showed bruising on Nafisa’s leg and Shaheen’s arm. A video released by 4PM News Network also showed bruises and welts which the women attributed to the alleged assault.
Their colleague Neetu separately alleged that the women were not immediately assisted in obtaining an MLC and that police instead sought a compromise. She further alleged that the women themselves called the police, went for the medical examination and later returned to the station, where they remained for hours without an FIR and were asked to remove two names from their complaint.
The FIR: The complaint had to be fought for
The dispute did not end when the journalists left the police station. In the early hours of September 4, activists and political workers gathered outside Saket Police Station demanding that Delhi Police formally register the women’s complaint against the officers they accused of assaulting them.
AISA president Neha Bora joined a sit-in at the police station at around 1 am. According to reports cited in the material, activists alleged that police were initially refusing even to receive the women’s complaint. Bora publicly demanded registration of an FIR. The pressure intensified when Congress workers from the party’s Minority Department reached the police station in large numbers and raised slogans against Delhi Police.
According to 4PM News Network, the complaint was eventually registered at around 3 am after Shaheen insisted that an FIR be filed against the accused officers and that they be immediately suspended.
This chronology is significant. The allegations of assault were followed not by an immediate police case against the officers named by the journalists, but by a period during which activists and political workers remained outside the same police station demanding that their complaint be formally registered.
September 3: Press bodies begin demanding accountability
The response from the press community began almost immediately. The Press Club of India, along with the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association and Kerala Union of Working Journalists, issued a joint statement on September 3 condemning what they described as the alleged assault and demanding action against police personnel posted at Saket Police Station, including the SHO.
The organisations called upon Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar to ensure a free and fair investigation and urged the Press Council of India to take suo motu cognisance and conduct an independent inquiry. The Network of Women in Media, India subsequently issued its own statement, demanding that the police personnel allegedly involved be suspended pending inquiry. It said attacks on journalists were inconsistent with freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
September 5: Editors Guild demands independent probe
On September 5, the Editors Guild of India also condemned the detention and alleged assault. The Guild referred to the journalists’ allegations that they were manhandled near the venue, taken to the police station and assaulted by women police officials. It also noted the allegations concerning religion-specific abuse and the injury marks shown by the journalists.
The Guild called for an immediate independent and unbiased investigation and demanded strict action against police personnel if the allegations were substantiated. The demand from the press bodies has consequently been framed not as an acceptance of the journalists’ allegations as established fact, but as a demand that those allegations be independently tested and that accountability follow if wrongdoing is established.
September 6–7: The allegations are repeated; CCTV becomes central
The journalists have continued to maintain that CCTV footage from Saket Police Station could provide crucial evidence. Shaheen’s written statement identifies the areas through which she says the sisters were dragged and assaulted. She said cameras covered parts of the station, including the reception and corridor, and that while the room where she alleges the later assault took place did not have a camera, the route leading to it did.
The women and 4PM News Network have therefore sought preservation and release of the CCTV footage. Reports also said Shaheen and Nafisa, along with their editor Sanjay Sharma, were considering approaching the Delhi High Court for preservation and production of the relevant footage.
The importance of the footage lies in the fact that the two sides have presented fundamentally different accounts of the detention and what followed. The journalists say CCTV may corroborate their account of being dragged through the station, while the police deny that any physical assault took place.
Six days later: The central questions remain
Six days after the September 3 incident, the controversy had moved beyond the original confrontation outside the hospital. On one side is the account of Shaheen and Nafisa: that they were detained while carrying out journalistic work, taken to Saket Police Station, assaulted there, and subjected to harsher treatment after police allegedly became aware that they were Muslim.
On the other is Delhi Police’s account: that the women were taken to the station because they allegedly obstructed a designated VVIP route, following repeated instructions concerning their scooter, and that the allegations of physical assault and religious targeting are factually incorrect and baseless.
The available material does not resolve that conflict. What it does establish is that the allegations have been specific: named police personnel, a detailed account of the alleged assault, alleged religious abuse, reported injuries, medical examination and identified CCTV locations. The journalists and press organisations have therefore made preservation and examination of that footage a central demand.
Related:
Six Days On, Still No FIR: What happened to Shaheen and Nafisa Khan at Saket Police Station?
Days of Demands, Hours of Protest: Swatantra Bhardwaj finally detained in assault case
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