Earlier that day, he had
a video on Facebook about a group that attacked the Singhu protest on 29 January. Punia reported seeing fifty–sixty people arrive at the site. He said in the video that the group pelted stones at the protesters, lobbed a petrol bomb and tried to set fire to their belongings, in front of thousands of policemen. Punia reported in the video that two of the assailants were associated with the BJP. Later that evening, he was arrested. The police filed a first-information report alleging that Punia had tried to pull a constable, Rajkumar. It characterised him as a protester, and not a journalist.