JFA demands action into UP scribe murder

June 24, 2020

Guwahati: Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA), while expressing serious concern over the brutal murder of a young and spirited scribe Shubham Mani Tripathi. in Unnao  town of Uttar Pradesh (UP), has urged the State government to nab the culprits.

Shubham (25), who was associated with a Kanpur-based Hindi daily  Kampu Mail (कंपू मेल) as a correspondent from Unnao, fell prey to miscreant’s bullets on 19 June 2020 as he was moving on a two-wheeler. Seriously injured Shubham was taken to a hospital in Kanpur, but he succumbed to injuries.

A resident of Brahmnagar in Unnao district, he used to report on illegal sand mining practices in his locality.
Recently he had been receiving threats from unknown individuals, suspected to be illegal miners, for his news coverage. But the courageous scribe did not bother and continued his journalistic activities.

“It is the first incident of journo-murder in India this year. We demand a fair investigation into the incident and appropriate punishments to Shubham’s killers,” said a statement issued by JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria with an appeal to UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath to adequately compensate the bereaved family.

India as a whole witnessed the incidents of nine journo-killings in 2019, but only one incident emerged as a case of targeted murder. K Satyanarayana (45) of Telugu daily Andhra Jyothy faced the fate
because of his works as a journalist. He was hacked to death by miscreants on 15 October. Local scribes informed Satyanarayana was targeted on earlier occasions too.

Others who were killed last year include Jobanpreet Singh,Vijay Gupta, Radheyshyam Sharma, Ashish Dhiman, Chakresh Jain, Anand Narayan and Nityanand Pandey. Kerala scribe K Muhammed Basheer was mowed down by a vehicle. Guwahati scribe Naresh Mitra also died in a mysterious accident. Bihar’s scribe Pradeep Mandal was also attacked by miscreants, but he survived.

–India News Stream