India Today reports that a journalist associated with the media house was thrashed and pelted with stones while he was reporting about an illegal slaughterhouse operating in Kodipalya village of Karnataka’s Ramnagar district.

Officers belonging to the Kudur police station raided the slaughterhouse on Tuesday. An animal activist, Joshine Anthony, and the reporter accompanied the police.

The report says that when the team entered the slaughterhouse compound, they found bones, skulls and calf intestines lying on the ground in pools of blood. Initially, the calves were nowhere to be seen, which suggested that someone from the police must have tipped them off.

But eventually, 71 calves were found after an intense search operation within the premises. They were hidden under low-lying trees and bushes, with their mouths and feet tied, the report says.

Things turned for the worse when a mob gathered outside the slaughterhouse. When the reporter attempted to ask them their side of the story, the mob thrashed him and also attacked him with stones. His mobile phone also broke in this attack, the report says.

Police have booked seven men namely Gazipeer, Khasi, Syed, Mubarakhan, Noor, Imthiaz and Tabrez under various sections of animal cruelty act. However, no separate FIR was registered for the attack on the journalist.