‘I screamed and screamed that I am a reporter’: Scroll’s Divya Aslesha detained by Pune Police

It was around 3.30 pm. I was covering the protest led by Left activists in Pune’s Shaniwar Wada area. There were more than 50 protesters, most of them young women.

I had been there for just about 20 minutes. I was covering the police as they were hauling all the protesters away into buses.

The police tried to drag me in twice. I screamed and screamed that I am a reporter. I showed them my press card. Someone intervened so the police let me go the second time.

But then, because I continued taking photos there, they said: “Just get inside. You are not leaving this area. We are going to take you with us.”

Now my colleague Divya Aslesha has been detained covering the protests in Pune. @PuneCityPolice please release her immediately. @IndEditorsGuild @DigipubIndia pic.twitter.com/fp6xUDWoHl— naresh fernandes (@tajmahalfoxtrot) October 10, 2026

I was in a police bus for about half an hour. The police picked me up near Lal Mahal, outside Shaniwar Wada. All the protesters were detained. Many of them were young women. We did not know where we were being taken.

There were a large number of police officers there. Must have been more than a hundred. They dragged people away. They did not tell anybody the cause of detention.

We were taken to Lashkar...

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