(Image source from: Latestly)
An Indian origin journalist is being acclaimed as a shining example of a patriotic after she valiantly saved Indian flag from getting ripped and battered.
A video of Poonam Joshi that has gone viral shows her darting into the middle of violent protests outside the India High Commission in London last week to retain the Tricolour from a group of pro-Pakistan and pro-Khalistan activists who had ripped the flag into three pieces and was beating it with a shoe.
Joshi grabbed the national flag from the protesters even as eggs, glass bottles and several objects were being hurled at her and other people of Indian origin who were celebrating Indian Independence Day.
Read: ‘Modi: Make Tea Not War’: Protests Outside Indian Mission in UK
British Pakistanis and pro-Khalistan Sikhs arrived in London in hordes to protest against the Indian government’s decision to revoke special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The protest, which initially begun unruffled in no time turned violent and riot police had to be called.
(Image Source: Swarjya)
London-based Joshi, reporting for ANI, recalled seeing a Sikh man rush from the side where the pro-Indian crowd was being kept behind barricades, holding the Tricolour. “We could see he was rushing to the Pakistani side, and they tried to grab him,” she said. “He quickly threw the folded flag at them. He then merged into the Pakistani side of the crowd, and the police did not allow the Indians on the other side to go after the guy. He was a very young Sikh man, wearing a white T-shirt with the words ‘Satnam Waheguru’ in between a picture of an AK-47.”
Joshi next saw "a very large man coming to the front in a black hoodie and colored sunglasses, and he was holding our flag and he had a Sikh bangle on his left hand".
She added: "He started unfolding the flag, and mocking and instigating and provoking the Indian side. I saw him tear the flag into two with his hands and then throw it on the ground, and then he started beating it with a shoe. Another guy, a bearded Pakistani, started crushing it under his shoes. He was mocking the Indians, saying ‘Look at what I am doing to your flag? Come and get it?’”
(Image Source: BizAsia)
Police officers shouted at Joshi not to cross the barricades. But she refused and darted towards where the Tricolour was being treated with disrespect.
“My blood was boiling. It was just instinctive. I ran to grab the flag from him, and at this point, one part was in his hand and one part under the shoe of the Pakistani. I snatched it from under the shoe and his hand. A tiny part of the flag was left on the ground, which I retrieved later on,” she said.
Open Letter to London Mayor
(Image Source: Sputnik International)
On Sunday, Joshi wrote an open letter to London mayor Sadiq Khan, which she also posted on Twitter. The letter says Khan let down the Indian community and that the “limited police resources” provided to handle the protest was shocking, more so because "the authorities had full knowledge of the scale of the protest”.
Along with the letter, she posted three pictures of the men who she says “stole, mutilated and insulted” India’s national flag.
“We demand the arrest and prosecution of these goons by the Met Police. These hooligans pose a huge threat not just to the Indian community but to anyone living in the UK and they are supported by MPs and councilors,” she wrote.
Joshi said she was planning on filing a police complaint about the incident after consulting the high commission. “The reason I have put an open letter to Sadiq Khan is to demand answers of him,” she added. “Millions agree with my sentiments. The intention of these protesters is not to protest for peace in the Valley but to cause destruction.”
A Met Police spokeswoman said: “We have no information about any flag incident. She needs to report to us, and not just put it on social media. We had an appropriate number of public order officers on the ground and an experienced command team monitoring events. This is the same as we have for all public order events.”
By Sowmya Sangam
