In 2011, the United Nations named journalism as one of the most dangerous professions in the world. Since 1992, 47 journalists have been killed in India alone, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organisation that campaigns for the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. As World Press Freedom Day is observed today, here is a look at the six Indian journalists who were killed in the line of duty last year.
Achyutananda Sahu
Video journalist Achyutananda Sahu, who worked for Doordarshan, was killed in in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh on October 30, 2018. Sahu and two other Doordarshan journalists were in the state for election-related coverage when Maoists ambushed a police party accompanying them. three policemen were also killed in the attack.
Chandan Tiwary
A journalist with Ranchi-based Hindi daily ‘Aaj’, Chandan Tiwary was abducted and beaten to death in Jharkhand's Chatra district October 29, 2018. A First Information Report( FIR) filed by the Jharkhand police named Maoist area commander Prasant, Pintu Singh, Jamuna Prasad, and Musafir Rana as accused in the case. Tiwary had been facing threats ever since he had done a story on the alleged corruption of Pintu Singh as a private contractor for a government-funded program to support rural employment.
Sandeep Sharma
Sandeep Sharma, a reporter for local News World television channel was killed in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhind district, on March 26, 2018. He was heading to a government event on his motorcycle when a truck ran him over, according to the channel’s bureau chief, Vikas Purohit, who witnessed the collision, and media reports. Sharma was declared brought dead at a local hospital.
Purohit told the Committee to Protect Journalists that both he and Sharma had been receiving death threats after they published two stories in July and October 2017 on alleged police- sand mining mafia nexus. Purohit said local residents had warned him and Sharma that they would “crush them under a truck” for doing the stories.
Navin Nischal and Vijay Singh
Navin Nischal, a stringer for the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar, and freelance journalist Vijay Singh were killed on March 25, 2018, after being run over by a vehicle in Bihar’s Arrah town. Nischal and Singh were riding Nischal's motorbike on the Arrah-Sasaram highway when the vehicle ran them over, killing them on the spot
The accused Arrah village head, Mohammad Harshu, and his son, , Dablu, were arrested by police after it emerged that they had allegedly killed the journalists because of Nischal’s reporting on child marriage and on Harshu's role in land divisions.
Shujaat Bukhari
The editor of Srinagar-based Rising Kashmir daily was shot dead by gunmen just as he was leaving his office at the Press Enclave in Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital city on June 14, 2018. Two police officers assigned to protect him were also killed in the attack. Bukhari had reportedly expressed apprehensions of an attack on his life days before his assassination, according to his colleagues and friends. In November 2018, the police claimed to have gunned two prime accused militants, one a Pakistani and another a Kashmiri, in two separate encounters in Kashmir. They also blamed a Pakistan-based Kashmir blogger for running a malicious campaign against Bukhari on social media and orchestrating his assassination.
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