Two Journalists Killed Within Hours, Journalist Body Demands Protection, Action
Guwahati, Nov 11 || The Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA), while expressing absolute shocks over the murders of two young television journalists in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu within hours on Sunday (8 November 2020), demanded stringent punishments to the culprits under the law.
In the first incident, Bhopal based news channel reporter Syed Adil Wahab (35) was found murdered in a forest area within the MP’s capital region. Wahab, who used to work for a local Hindi news channel, went missing since Saturday evening and next afternoon his body with severe injuries on face & head was recovered by the police from Sewania jungle.
On the other hand, a Kancheepuram based scribe was hacked to death by a group of anti-social persons on Sunday evening. Isravel Moses (27), who worked for a Tamil news channel was attacked by the goons with sharp weapons near his residence. He was rushed to Chromepet government hospital, but died on the way. Tamil Nadu police arrested Manoj Selvam, Venkatesan Sekar, Vignesh Tirumalai and Navamani Duraisamy for the murder.
Earlier, Ballia (Uttar Pradesh) based television journalist Ratan Singh (45) was murdered on 24 August. Singh, who used to work for Hindi news channel SaharaSamay was reportedly shot dead by his neighbours to settle their old enmity and property disputes. Similarly, Assam’s Tinsukia based scribe Bijendeep Tanti (32) was found murdered on 8 August at his rented office. Tanti was associated with NewsTimeAssam and also ran a facebook portal named DinPratidinNortheast.
MP’s Niwari locality based journalist Sunil Tiwari (35), who worked for a Gwalior-based Hindi newspaper, was beaten, stabbed and shot to death in on 22 July. Same day, UP journalist Vikram Joshi (45) succumbed to his injuries in a Ghaziabad hospital. Joshi, who worked for local newspaper JanSagarToday, was attacked on 20 July by a group of goons and shot at him in front of his two minor daughters as he lodged a police complaint for eve-teasing against some goons.
“The first journo-casualty in India this year was reported from UP’s Unnao locality, where young scribe Shubham Mani Tripathi (25), who worked for Hindi daily KampuMail, fell prey to bullets of two shooters on 19 June,” said JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria, adding that Shubham reported on illegal sand mining practices in his area and thus the brave journalist invited enmity from a group of criminals, some of them were already arrested by the police.