Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the global media safety and rights body, condemns the murder of Vimal Kumar Yadav, a young scribe associated with the leading Hindi newspaper, Dainik Jagran, in Bihar province of north India this morning and demanded a high level probe into the incident to unearth the motive behind the assassination as well as punish the perpetrators under the law.
Mentionable is that Yadav (38) was shot dead by at least two miscreants in Prem Nagar area under Raniganj police station on Friday morning. The killers targeted Yadav from a short range and escaped from the place. Yadav was taken to a nearby hospital, but the attending doctors declared him dead. He left behind his wife, a daughter and a host of relatives. Yadav’s younger brother Shashibhushan was also killed by unidentified gunmen in 2019.
“It’s shocking that a young reporter has been killed by armed miscreants in his own locality. Vimal Kumar Yadav becomes the 34th journalist to be killed this year till date. India has a bad name in delivering swift justice to the bereaved journo-families. We urge Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to take personal interest to book the culprits and punish them with no impunity,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC (www.pressemblem.ch).
PEC’s south Asia representative Nava Thakuria informed that the Bihar scribe was receiving threats from some individuals as he pursued the ongoing trials of his brother’s assassination in 2019.
Incidentally Yadavwas a primary witness to the murder and thus he seems to be the target of those criminals, said Thakuria, adding that India earlier witnessed the killings of Shashikant Warishe of Maharashtra on 7 February and Abdur Rauf Alamgir of Assam on 26 June. Its neighbours Pakistan lost three journalists (Imtiaz Baig, Jan Mohammed Mahar and Ghulam Asghar Khand) and Bangladesh two scribes (Ashiqul Islam and Golam Rabbani Nadim) to assailants since 1 January this year.
When journalists approached Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna with queries about the incident, he said, “I felt really sad and immediately asked officials concerned to look into the incident”.
“The matter is being probed and the culprits will be brought to book,” asserted the CM. However, the opposition lashed out at the government and claimed the incident showed “democracy is in danger in Bihar”.
“Criminals are roaming freely while innocent citizens, including journalists, and even police personnel are being killed in Bihar,” alleged state BJP president Samrat Choudhary.
