This is a list of journalists killed in India[1][2]
Date | Name | Media outlet | Place | Summary | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
03 January 1992 | Ram Singh Biling | Azdi Awaz, Daily Ajit | Azamgarh, Punjab | Biling, a correspondent based in Amargarh for two newspapers in Punjab, namely Azdi Awaz and Daily Ajit, was reportedly apprehended by the police while he was traveling by bus to Jalandhar. Despite officials' denial of the arrest, it was reported that Biling, who was also an activist for human rights, was seen in custody by village elders. While the police did not acknowledge his detention, there are suspicions that he passed away while in custody. | [3] |
27 February 1992 | Bakshi Tirath Singh | Hind Samachar | Dhuri, Punjab | Singh was a reporter for the Punjabi newspaper Hind Samachar, based in Dhuri, India. He was assassinated by unidentified individuals, and the reason behind the attack remains uncertain. | [4] |
18 May 1992 | M.L. Manchanda | All India Radio | Patiala, Punjab | In May 1991, a tragic incident occurred in Patiala, Punjab, India that captured the attention of the nation. Mr. Manchanda, the director of the All India Radio station located in Patiala, was abducted by members of the militant organization known as Babbar Khalsa. This group demanded that the electronic media adhere to a specific code of conduct, which included broadcasting in the local language of Punjabi instead of Hindi. Despite negotiations for Mr. Manchanda’s release, the government failed to comply with Babbar Khalsa’s demands within the deadline set by the group. Consequently, on May 27, 1991, the militants beheaded Mr. Manchanda, a journalist, in a brutal act that shocked the country. | [5] |
31 January 1993 | Bhola Nath Masoom | Hind Samachar | Rajpura | Masoom, a journalist associated with Hind Samachar and serving as the president of the Punjab and Chandigarh Journalist's Council, was fatally shot by two suspected militants in the vicinity of his residence located in Rajpura, India. The incident occurred on an unspecified date, and Masoom succumbed to his injuries on the same day. | [6] |
22 May 1993 | Dinesh Pathak | Resident editor of Sandesh newspaper in Baroda. | Vadodara | Raju Risaldar, accused of ordering the killing, was later shot dead by Gujarat Police in the Vadodara encounter. | [7][8] |
29 August 1994 | Ghulam Mohammad Lone | Freelance | Kangan, Kashmir | Lone, a newspaper salesman and freelance journalist who had received death threats for his coverage of troop movements in Kashmir, was shot and killed along with his seven-year-old son by a group of masked gunmen, with the Srinagar police attributing the killings to Kashmiri separatists. | [9] |
10 September 1995 | Mushtaq Ali | Agence France-Presse and Asian News International | Srinagar | On September 7, a letter bomb addressed to a journalist in Srinagar exploded in the hands of Ali, a photographer for Agence France-Presse and a camera operator for Asian News International, causing severe injuries that led to his death three days later. | [10] |
10 April 1996 | Ghulam Rasool Sheikh | Rehnuma-e-Kashmir and Saffron Times | Pampore | The death of Sheikh, the editor of Rehnuma-e-Kashmir and Saffron Times, who had reported on violence in Pampore, and whose body was found floating in Kashmir's Jhelum River, has been attributed by his family members to a militia group allegedly supported by Indian state security forces, which had reportedly kidnapped him in March. | [11] |
17 May 1996 | Parag Kumar Das | Asomiya Pratidin | Assam | Parag Kumar Das, editor-in-chief of the Asomiya Pratidin and a leading voice for self-rule for Assam who had continued reporting on separatist perspectives despite previous arrests, was assassinated in Guwahati while picking up his son from school; his colleagues believe that his recent interview with the leader of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam may have led to his assassination by a splinter group, and he was also known for his work monitoring human rights abuses by the army and counterinsurgency forces against the Assamese. | [12] |
1 January 1996 | Altaf Ahmed Faktoo | Doordarshan TV | Srinagar | Faktoo, a journalist and news anchor for the state-owned Doordarshan television station in Srinagar, Kashmir, was assassinated by militant separatists who had previously threatened him due to his pro-government news reporting and work with the state-owned broadcast media; he was also previously kidnapped and detained by a militant group in 1994. | [13] |
16 March 1997 | Saidan Shafi | Doordarshan TV | Srinagar | Shafi, a reporter for Doordarshan TV, was killed in an ambush in Srinagar, Kashmir while working on two news programs, "Kashmir File" and "Eyewitness," with his personal security guard also being fatally shot; his reporting on "Kashmir File" that criticized militant Kashmiri separatists had reportedly led to threats from separatists who accused him of biased reporting. | [14] |
19 November 1997 | S. Gangadhara Raju | Eenadu Television | Hyderabad | A car bomb explosion outside Rama Naidu Studios in Hyderabad killed five members of a television crew, including Gangadhara Raju, an E-TV cameraman, Jagadish Babu, a producer for private channel E-TV, Srinivas Rao and S. Krishna, assistant cameramen for E-TV, and Raja Sekhar, an assistant for E-TV, along with their driver and at least 17 others, while covering the making of a film; the attack is believed to have been politically motivated, targeting the film's producer, Paritala Ravi, a former guerrilla leader and member of the governing Telugu Desam party. | [15] |
S. Krishna | |||||
G. Raja Sekhar | |||||
Jagadish Babu | |||||
P. Srinivas Rao | |||||
27 February 1999 | Shivani Bhatnagar | The Indian Express | New Delhi | Bhatnagar, a special correspondent for the Indian Express, was found dead in her apartment in East Delhi. Bhatnagar was strangled and stabbed in the neck and abdomen. While her killers were not identified, early reports speculated that they may have been seeking certain incriminating documents, although police did not find robbery to be a likely motive. | [16] |
13 March 1999 | Irfan Hussain | Outlook | New Delhi | Hussain, a cartoonist for Outlook magazine, was found dead on the side of a highway in Delhi with his hands and feet bound, throat slit, and having been stabbed 28 times and strangled. His murder was allegedly linked to his satirical cartoons mocking leaders of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and a threatening phone call from someone claiming to be a member of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist political organization, was reportedly made to the wife of another cartoonist prior to Hussain's murder. | [17] |
10 October 1999 | N. A. Lalruhlu | Shan | Manipur | Lalruhlu, an editor of the Hmar-language newspaper Shan, and three others were killed in an attack by suspected separatist militants in Manipur, India. The Hmar Revolutionary Front claimed responsibility for the killings, stating that Lalruhlu was not targeted for his journalism, but because of his involvement with a rival militant group, highlighting the ongoing separatist and ethnic violence in the region. | [18] |
18 March 2000 | Adhir Rai | Freelance | Deoghar, Jharkhand | Rai was a freelance journalist and president of the Deoghar Working Journalists Union, who was murdered while on assignment. The Hindu, an English-language newspaper, reported on the incident and also mentioned that Rai was a lecturer at a local college. | [19] |
31 July 2000 | V. Selvaraj | Nakkeeran | Perambalur, Tamil Nadu | Selvaraj, a journalist for the Tamil-language biweekly Nakkeeran, was killed by a group of about a dozen men in his hometown of Perambalur, Tamil Nadu. He suffered over 20 serious wounds from knives and sickles, and his death may have been related to his reporting on government corruption in Tiruchi. The Crime Branch Central Investigation Department was investigating the case, but no major developments had been reported by the end of the year. | [20] |
10 August 2000 | Pradeep Bhatia | Hindustan Times | Srinagar | In August 2000, a bomb attack in the Kashmir capital, Srinagar killed at least 12 people, including Bhatia, a photographer for The Hindustan Times, and injured six other journalists. Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, a militant Kashmiri separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack targeting Indian security forces. | [21][22] |
20 August 2000 | Thounaojam Brajamani Singh | Manipur News | Imphal | Brajamani, the founder of Manipur News and a well-known journalist in Manipur State, India, was assassinated in the capital city of Imphal while riding his scooter home. He was shot twice in the back of the head by two men who forced him to stop on the road, according to sources. | [23][24] |
30 July 2001 | Moolchand Yadav | Freelancer | Jhansi | Yadav was a freelance reporter who frequently wrote for Hindi-language newspapers such as Jansatta and Punjab Kesari. He was assassinated on a Jhansi street in Uttar Pradesh allegedly due to his investigative reporting on local corruption that angered two influential landowners, according to colleagues. | [25] |
14 April 2002 | Paritosh Pandey | Jansatta Express | Lucknow | In April 2002, crime reporter Pandey, who worked for the Hindi-language daily Jansatta Express, was shot and killed at his home in Lucknow. While it is likely that Pandey was targeted due to his reporting on criminal gangs, the specific motive behind his murder remains unclear. | [26] |
13 October 2002 | Yambem Meghajit Singh | Northeast Vision | Imphal | In the city of Imphal, located in India's conflict-ridden Northeast region, Meghajit, a chief correspondent for Northeast Vision, was found dead in his home after being beaten with bamboo sticks and shot in the head. While no group has claimed responsibility for the murder, some journalists speculate that it may have been related to Meghajit's involvement in the semiprecious stone trade. | [27] |
21 November 2002 | Ram Chander Chhatrapati | Poora Sach | Sirsa, Haryana | Chaterpatti, an editor of Hindi-language newspaper Poora Sach, died from injuries sustained in an assassination attempt in Sirsa, Haryana on October 24, 2016. The alleged gunman and a leader of the Sirsa-based religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda were among three suspects arrested, with officials stating that members of the group ordered Chaterpatti’s murder due to the journalist’s reporting on sexual abuse and other crimes allegedly committed at the group’s compound. In January 2019, a special court in Haryana convicted four individuals of Chaterpatti's murder and criminal conspiracy, sentencing them each to life imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 rupees. | [28][29] |
7 September 2013 | Rajesh Verma | IBN7 | Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh | [30] | |
6 December 2013 | Sai Reddy | Deshbandhu | Bijapur district | [31] | |
27 May 2014 | Tarun Kumar Acharya | Sambad and Kanak TV | Khallikote, Ganjam district, Odisha | [32][33] | |
26 November 2014 | M. V. N. Shankar | Andhra Prabha | Chilakaluripet, Andhra Pradesh | [34] | |
8 June 2015 | Jagendra Singh | Freelance | Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh | [35][36] | |
20 June 2015 | Sandeep Kothari | Freelance | Katangi, Balaghat district, Madhya Pradesh | [37] | |
13 August 2015 | Sanjay Pathak | United News of India | Faridpur district, Uttar Pradesh | [38][39] | |
30 August 2015 | M M Kalburgi | Samagra Vachana Samputa | Dharwad, Karnataka | ||
3 October 2015 | Hemant Yadav | TV24 | Chandauli district, Uttar Pradesh | [38] | |
13 February 2016 | Karun Misra | Jansandesh Times | Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh | [40] | |
13 May 2016 | Rajdev Ranjan | Hindustan | Siwan, Bihar | [41] | |
23 August 2016 | Kishore Dave | Jai Hind | Junagadh, Gujarat | [42] | |
5 September 2017 | Gauri Lankesh | Gauri Lankesh Patrike | Bengaluru, Karnataka | [43] | |
21 September 2017 | Santanu Bhowmik | Channel Dinraat | Mandwi/Mandai, Tripura | [44] | |
24 September 2017 | KJ Singh | Mohali, Punjab | [45][46] | ||
21 November 2017 | Sudip Datta Bhaumik | Bengali language newspaper Syandan Patrika and local television station News Vanguard | Bodhjung Nagar, Tripura | [47] | |
25 March 2018 | Navin Nishchal | Journalist of Dainik Bhaskar in Bihar | Bhojpur district, Bihar | [48][49] | |
14 June 2018 | Shujaat Bukhari | Editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper | Srinagar | [50] | |
29 October 2018 | Chandan Tiwari | Reporter with Aj | Pathalgada, Chatra, Jharkhand | [51][52] | |
8 November 2020 | Isravel Moses | Reporter at Tamizhan TV | Chennai, Tamil Nadu | Isravel Moses was hacked to death with machetes by alleged drug dealers in the Chennai suburb of Kundrathur after his neighbors identified him as a journalist. The murder occurred a week after he reported on the local sale of cannabis and associated illegal encroachments of land. | [53][54][55] |
28 November 2020 | Rakesh Singh | Reporter with Hindi language local daily newspaper Rashtriya Swaroop | Balrampur district, Uttar Pradesh | Burned to death with his friend after assailants set fire to his village house which fall under the jurisdiction of the Kotwali Dehat police station in the Balrampur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The UP state government has since promised to offer his wife a job. | [56][57][58] |