SHAHJAHANPUR: Killing journalists for exposing evil practices and speaking up the truth is becoming a tradition in India.
In another shocking and shameful incident, journalist Jagendra Singh, based out of Shahjahapur succumbed to his injuries after he was allegedly burnt alive for his anti-Samajwadi Party posts on Facebook.
Singh’s family has claimed that a police officer allegedly set the journalist on fire. He succumbed to his injuries while he was being taken to the hospital.
Singh had reportedly written about the MLA in newspapers accusing him of nefarious activities regarding illegal mining and forced occupation of land, etc. The charges are said to have angered the Samajwadi Party leader. He also allegedly implicated Jagendra Singh in a false case.
“The police murdered Jagendra Singh,” the eyewitnesses claim.
However, the police has maintained that Singh committed suicide. “There was a case against Jagendra Singh. We tried to arrest him but he committed suicide,” SP, Shahjahanpur said.
According to the reports, Singh was burnt alive in Uttar Pradesh after he shared his views on Facebook that were against Samajwadi Party MLA Ram Murti.
The family of the deceased claim that a police officier reportedly set Singh on fire and he breath last while he was being taken to the hospital.
Reports tell that the journalist had accused the UP MLA of evil activities regarding illegal mining and forced occupation of land etc. in newspapers.
The charges against the SP leader have said to left his party members in anger and he also allegedly implicated Jagendra Singh in a false case.
“The police killed journalist Jagendra Singh,” eyewitnesses claim.
The police on the other hand continue to maintain that the journalist committed suicide. “There was a case against Jagendra Singh. We tried to arrest him but he committed suicide,” SP, Shahjahanpur said.
This is not the first time that the media industry has fallen prey to the ill practices of goons in India. Sveral cases in the past too have highlighted that journalists in India are not as safe as they appear to be. In 2013 alone, 11 journalists were killed in India that had put the country on the third position n the International Press Institute’s (IPI) list of media personnel killed across the world during the year.
War-hit Syria bagged the number one position with 16 journalists being killed in the year followed by 13 fatalities in Philippines and Iraq.
India has even over-powered Pakistan now which is believed to be the ‘most dangerous country’ for the journalists.
Here are some famous names that were killed because of their roles and responsibility in the media fraternity:
27 February 1992: Bakshi Tirath Singh of Hind Samachar was killed by unidentified assailants in Dhuri, Punjab. The motive of the attack was not confirmed.
23 January 1999: Shivani Bhatnagar of the Indian Express was murdered and her death became one of the biggest scandals of that decade that reached in to the top levels of the Indian politics. . Indian Police Service officer Ravi Kant Sharma was charged with the murder by the Delhi Police, who investigated the case. Sharma surrendered to the police on September 27, 2002, after having been in hiding since the arrest warrant was issued on August 3 of that year. Sharma allegedly got Bhatnagar killed because he feared she would expose their “intimate” relations.
13 March 1999: Irfan Hussain, a senior cartoonist of Outlook who was kidnapped and murdered reportedly by some Shiv Sena supporters.
10 October 1999: N. A. Lalruhlu of Shan was killed by unknown people and the motive of his death also remained a mystery.
18 March 2000: Adhir Rai was a freelance journalist who shot dead by unidentified assassins while he was out on an assignment.
20 August 2000: Thounaojam Brajamani Singh was an Editor with a Manipur daily who shot dead while he was on his way back home by two men on a scooter. The motive remained unknown.
30 July, 2001: Moolchand Yadav was another name from the fraternity who worked for famous papers like Jansatta and Punjab Kesari shot dead in Jhansi after he two powerful landowners for illegal activities.
21 November, 2002: Ram Chander Chaterpatti, Editor of Poora Sach died in a New Delhi hospital of injuries sustained in an assassination attempt by gun shots at him.
31 January, 2003: Parvaz Mohammad Sultan was an Editor with an independent news agency who was shot dead in Jammu.
21 February, 2004: Veeraboina Yadagiri, a veteran journalist for the local, Telugu-language daily Andhra Prabha, was stabbed to death near his home in the town of Medak, Andhra Pradesh.
20 April, 2004: Asiya Jeelani, a freelance died while she was being taken to hospital after a van carrying an elections monitoring team detonated an explosive device on a rural road in northern Kashmir.
6 January, 2004: Prahlad Goala was murdered near his home in Golaghat district of Assam after writing a series of articles on corruption in the Assamese-language daily Asomiya Khabar that linked local forestry service officials to timber smuggling.
1 April, 2008: Mohammed Muslimuddin was stabbed by six assailants armed with “sharp weapons” near his residence in the village of Barpukhuri in central Assam state.
August 13, 2008: Javed Ahmed Mir of Channel 9 was killed by security forces while he was covering protests during a spate of violence in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
25 November, 2008: Vikas Ranjan, a correspondent for the Hindi-language daily Hindustan, was reportedly shot in the town of Rosera in the Samastipur district of northern Bihar state.
July 20, 2010: Vijay Pratap Singh a senior correspondent for the daily Indian Express, died of injuries suffered in a July 12 bombing while he was interviewing Nand Gopal Gupta.
1 March, 2012: Rajesh Mishra of Media Raj was attacked on the head by two assailants with iron rods while he was at a public tea stall in Rewa town in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
http://www.newsx.com/regional/4448-journalist-reportedly-burnt-alive-for-expressing-views-against-a-samajwadi-party-leader
Leave a Reply