JFA decries Madhya Pradesh scribe's murder

Guwahati, June 22: Jourlists’ Forum Assam (JFA) expressed utter dismay at the repeated incidents of scribe’s murder in the country and urged the robust media fraternity of the largest democracy of the globe to stand united for the cause of justice to all the slain jourlists. The JFA’s aggravated reaction came out following the news of the brutal murder of a rural jourlist in Madhya Pradesh, where Sandip Kothari, 40, was burnt to death for his jourlistic activities against the Manganese mining mafia. The media body also denounced the floating allegation against the scribe that he was killed because of persol enmity only. According to the media reports from Bhopal, the charred body of Kothari -who was abducted on 19 June 2015 night from Katangi locality of Balaghat district in MP- was found lying near the railway tracks at Sindhi of Wardha district in eastern Maharashtra next day. The MP police have already arrested two persons, who are involved in illegal mining and chit-funding activities, in connection with the murder of Kothari, who used to work as a local correspondent to a Hindi daily of central India.

“This is the second incident of jourlist’s murder in India this year. It is shocking that we have lost two active jourlists within a month, where  the first one was reported from  Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh (Jagendra Singh),” said a statement issued by JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary va Thakuria. The Shahjahanpur based citizen jourlist Singh was also burnt to death by miscreants recently as he continued his Facebook updates against the mining mafia in his locality.  Singh was reportedly doused with inflammable items and set him ablaze by a group of police personnel, who came to raid his residence on June 1 last. The middle aged jourlist died of burn injuries on June 8 at Lucknow civil hospital. It was followed by another three major incidents of physical assaults on media persons (Deepak Mishra at Kanpur, Haidar Khan at Sherpur Kalan locality and Prashanta Kumar at Khoirabari) in the country. Kumar from Udalguri district in western Assam had survived an assassition bid by some suspected militants on the night of June 18. The Assam based media body demanded justice in all the assault cases and urged the respective authorities including MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan   to ensure security to the media persons. The JFA argued that unless justice is guaranteed, few jourlists would take the risk of reporting sensitive issues, which would only ruin the tradition of serious & critical jourlism in the country. This was stated in a press release.