UP: Priyanka's aide booked for assaulting journalist

An aide of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was booked for allegedly threatening and assaulting a scribe during the Congress leader's visit to Uttar Pradesh's Sonebhadra district to meet the kin of the carnage victims on Tuesday.

The scribe Nitish Kumar Pandey, who worked for a Hindi TV channel, lodged a complaint against Sandeep Singh, who was Priyanka's personal secretary, in this regard at Ghorawal police station in Sonebhadra on Tuesday.

Police sources here said that an FIR was registered and investigations were on.

Pandey alleged that Singh assaulted him and even tried to snatch his camera after he asked Priyanka a question about abrogation of Art 370.

The scribe alleged that Singh accused him of ''asking questions on behest of BJP after taking money from the party''. ''Thonk doonga,'' (I will shoot you), said Singh, alleged Pandey.

A video purportedly showing the incident also went viral on the social networking sites.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath's media adviser Mrityunjay Kumar sharply condemned, what he termed attack on the media person, and also took potshot on Priyanka.

''Stop trying to show as if you are sympathetic to the victims...where are the so-called protectors of media,'' Kumar said in a Twitter post attacking Priyanka over the incident.

Priyanka had on Tuesday visited Umbha village in Sonebhadra, where ten tribals had been killed in a violent clash with the village panchayat chief and his goons last month over a land dispute.