YouTuber Held in Sultanpur for Showing Poor Condition of ANM Centre

Lucknow: The Sultanpur Police have arrested a YouTuber claiming to be a journalist for filming the poor condition of an Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) centre in the district’s Sarai Gokul area. 

A nurse of the ANM centre lodged an FIR alleging misbehaviour and assault against the YouTuber, Lalit Yadav, at the Kurebhar Police Station on Thursday.

Yadav was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 384 (extortion), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation) and under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.

Yadav, who runs a YouTube channel covering local issues, visited the health centre on Wednesday. In the viral video, he is heard saying that there are no doctors and pointing at dog excreta in the building.

After seeing its ‘pathetic condition’, he confronts the staff. Suddenly, a nurse called Janaklali starts assaulting him with slippers and a stick, which was caught on camera. Subsequently, the woman’s family arrives at the centre and joins her in assaulting Yadav.

As per the FIR, the complainant said that Yadav had an illegal weapon and misbehaved and assaulter her. 

“He demanded Rs 10,000. When we refused, he threw the vaccines and made lewd remarks at women getting vaccinated,” the FIR, seen by Newsclick, reads. 

Sarai Gokul station house officer Parveen Yadav told Newsclick that Lalit Yadav lodged a counter-FIR alleging that the nurse was never on duty. “When I asked ANM Janaklali why she is mostly absent, because of which people suffer, she started hitting me with slippers and a stick,” the FIR reads.

One of Yadav’s relatives requesting anonymity told Newsclick that he was “only trying to expose the unhygienic condition at the centre”.

“Lalit’s concern for the lack of facilities at the centre does not make him a criminal. He was demanding the rights of people as common citizen. Yet he has been jailed,” the relative said.

Yadav’s family alleged that the ANM centre neither keeps the labour room clean nor conducts regular health check-up rounds.

The chief medical officer has constituted a committee of revenue and health officials to inquire into the incident. 

Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak, who also holds the health portfolio, ordered a probe against the ANM centre after Yadav’s family filed a complaint highlighting mismanagement in treatment and the nurse’s indecent behaviour. 

“A committee has been constituted. An inquiry report has been sought within a week. Strict action will be taken against the guilty health worker,” he tweeted.

Samajwadi Party president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav too took to Twitter to condemn the attack. “Under the BJP rule, the incident of a health worker beating up a media person who exposed the plight of a government hospital in UP should be considered a criminal case. If there is even one such daring journalist in every district, everyone would know the truth of UP,” he tweeted. 

Recently, a vernacular journalist in Unnao was shot at allegedly by BJP workers for reporting on land grabbers.