Brutal silencing of journalists in India

The website also includes 23 journalists, the motive of whose death is not yet confirmed by CPJ. It also lists the names of three media workers killed in 2007, all of whom were working for the Tamil daily Dinakaran.

This takes the number to an astonishing 61 people, which is a huge number and should be a matter of shame for a democracy.

During the Punjab insurgency in the 1980s, journalists of newspapers such as Punjab Kesari, Jag Bani and Hind Samachar were targeted by terrorists. In 1984, the editor of the Hind Samachar group, Ramesh Chandra, was shot dead. Journalists and editors from other newspapers were gunned down.

The signs are clear.

The pillars of democracy are cracking and democracy itself is in danger.

The 7 January 2015 attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo threw up questions about freedom of expression, and its limits, into the spotlight. The tragedy sparked global debate about whether some expressive content should be censored and if so, to what end.

In India, it seems, everything against ‘the power that be’ is censored, by force if needs be. And dead bodies continue to pile up.

While the broadcast media is putting up ‘circuses’ all around, fighting for TRP, the print media seems to be more concerned about the advertisers, and thus, ‘the power that be’, since government agencies are the biggest advertisers for any newspaper.

Narrating her experience of working in the English weekly Himmat, during the Emergency, Kalpana Sharma writes in the news portal Scroll.in, “The next 20 months were a roller-coaster ride, but one that formed us as journalists. The principal lesson we learned was that freedom of the press is not a luxury that the rulers bestow on you: it is a lifeline in an unequal society like ours. Without it, the poor would become invisible because it would deprive them of their basic right to be heard as citizens in a democracy.”

Forty years on, this ‘lifeline in an unequal society like ours’ is under severe threat, with no viable solution in sight.

Rajesh Mishra worked for Media Raj, a weekly based in Rewa, about 550km northeast of the state capital, Bhopal. He had received anonymous phone threats after writing reports about the alleged mismanagement of a number of regional schools owned by Rajneesh Banerjee, the publisher of another Rewa-based newspaper, Vindhya Bharat. Mishra had gone to a tea stand with Vindhya Bharat editor Anil Tripathi, at Tripathi’s invitation, and while there he was beaten over the head by two unidentified persons who quickly ran off. He was immediately hospitalised and was then transferred to a hospital in Jabalpur, where he died the next day, on 1 March 2012.

Sai Reddy, 51, a reporter for the Hindi newspaper Deshbandhu was beaten and stabbed by assailants on 6 December 2013, as he left a market in Basaguda village in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh. He sustained severe head and neck injuries, and died as he was being transported to a local hospital. Reddy possessed a deep understanding of local issues and problems, and was considered a veteran journalist by his colleagues. He covered local issues such as health, education, water supply, food distribution, and corruption, and often criticised the government, Maoist insurgents, security forces, and local police.

On 7 September 2013, unidentified assailants fatally shot Rajesh Verma, a part-time stringer for the news channel IBN 7, in the chest, while he was covering confrontations between Hindus and Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, UP. Verma was working for the station for about five years.

Rakesh Sharma, 50, a senior reporter for the Hindi daily Aaj, was shot by unidentified assailants on a motorcycle in the Bakewar town of the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh on 23 Aug 2013. Sharma had left his home after receiving a call from an unknown number. Local journalists said they believed Sharma had been targeted by a local gambling mafia for a critical report he had published on illegal gambling operations.

On 20 August 2013, two unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot Narendra Dabholkar, a journalist and and a vocal anti-superstition activist, in Pune, while he was taking an early-morning walk. The gunmen fled the scene. Dabholkar died from injuries sustained to his neck and back. Dabholkar, the editor of Marathi weekly Sadhana, promoted scientific thought and covered topics including caste, politics, and religion. Over the years, Dabholkar had angered many Indians with his lectures and writings, which propagated rationalism and scientific thinking. Dabholkar had also spent several years writing in support of a legislation to ban fraudulent and exploitative superstitious practices. A few days before his murder, the Maharashtra state government said it would introduce a controversial anti-superstition bill.

These recommendations are part of a report prepared by a PCI sub-committee on safety of journalists, which has been adopted by the council. PCI chairman Justice (retd) Chandramauli Kumar Prasad said that 3 November should be proclaimed as the ‘National Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists’.

The PCI will now take up matters related to attack on electronic journalists and not just those belonging to the print media as was done earlier.

The sub-committee including K Amarnath and Rajiv Ranjan Nag suggested that all cases of attacks on journalists should be probed by a special task force under the supervision of PCI or court and investigation be completed within one month. If a journalist is murdered, the case should be referred to CBI or any other national level investigative agency and investigation completed within three months.

The committee also recommends that in case a journalist is killed, Rs 10 lakh should be paid by the state government to family members while there should be a compensation of Rs 5 lakh in case of grievous injuries. It suggested that medical expenses of the injured journalist may be paid by state government and news organisation should treat them on duty during this period.