Protest rallies against repeated assaults on journalists will be held across Chhattisgarh this week.
While a large rally is scheduled for Sunday in Bastar division in which scores of journalists are expected to participate, on Friday, the family members of a young journalist, Umesh Rajput, who was killed in January 2011, held a public meeting in Gariabandh district. Umesh was killed by a powerful lobby of health professionals who were angered by the slain reporter’s newspaper articles criticising the district’s health infrastructure, his family members have claimed. Condemning the police administration for not investigating the case in the last two years, the brother of Umesh, Parameswar Rajput, said the journalist’s only ‘fault’ was to report the death of a tribal woman who died due to medical negligence.
“The woman, Runjibai Gaud, died at a local government hospital while undergoing a cataract operation and my brother wrote an article in his paper. He was later threatened and killed. No one has been arrested and the case has not moved at all, as the accused are powerful people,” said Mr. Rajput said.
Besides Mr. Rajput, at least three other prominent journalists have been killed in the last four years in the State. One of them, Sushil Pathak, was killed in central Chhattisgarh while two more — Nemichand Jain and Sai Reddy — were killed in Bastar Division in the far south. Maoists have claimed that they killed the two journalists.
Journalists of the partially Maoist affected Bastar division are planning a four-day protest march through the areas controlled by the rebels, beginning on January 26. Fifty journalists from various parts of Chhattisgarh and the country are expected to meet at Orchha in Narayanpur and walk through Abujhmarh, the vast swath of forestland controlled by the Maoists.
