They will use any excuse to beat the crap out of someone. In this case they were jealous the reporters were covering a different rampaging mob and not their own.

HYDERABAD: Over a dozen journalists and policemen were assaulted as rioters during Ishq-e-Rasool protests besieged Hyderabad Press Club and the roads outside it were turned into a battlefield on Friday.

The exchange of fire and tear-gas shelling, which started more than 75 minutes after the hostilities, sparked at around 4:15 pm and continued for over three hours.

At least six journalists were beaten, dragged and pelted with stones while as many policemen including a DSP and SHO were also roughed up. Two motorcycles, one belonging to a reporter Abdul Qadir and another of cameraman Adnan Zai, were set ablaze while the rioters also ransacked the club’s reception before they were pushed out.

The peaceful protests outside the club, which started in the morning, took an ugly turn in the afternoon. A group of protesters, who came in a rally of a religious group, began by shouting at the journalists, complaining that they are not being given proper coverage. In an instant they began hurling abuses and stones at the reporters, cameramen and photographers standing in and outside the club.

“They were carping that the media was giving coverage to a particular group of protesters and was ignoring them,” said a photographer who was among the first to be hit by a rock inside the club.

The siege forced the journalists to escape from the club by climbing the walls of the adjoining Radio Pakistan and into an alley behind the club. “We are stuck in a cul de sac. The only entrance to the street is blocked by the protesters who are attacking anyone with a camera,” said photographer Farhan Khan before the police action began.