Nava Thakuria
Geneva: Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the global media safety and rights body, condemns the recent physical attack on a journalist in Uttar Pradesh and demands stringent punishments to the perpetrators. Devendra Khare, who is associated with the privately owned Hindi media outlet News1India, was shot at by miscreants in the evening hours of 26 February at Chandpur area of Jaunpur city. Injured Khare is now recovering from wounds in the hospital.
According to local media reports, Khare and some of his friends were in the office premises when two masked gunmen fired at him twice. He sustained injuries to his stomach and right hand. The gunmen left the place immediately. A case has been registered against one Rituraj Singh and two others, whom Khare claimed to be involved with the incident. A number of people were interrogated by the police, but no arrest has been made till date.
“Targeting journalists is always condemnable and we demand a high-level probe into the incident to nab the perpetrators. Devendra Khare should be offered competent medical treatment free of cost by the UP government,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC (www.pressemblem.ch), adding that only a few days back India witnessed the murder of Shashikant Warishe, who used to work for Marathi-language daily Mahanagari Times in Maharashtra.
PEC Asia representative Nava Thakuria reveals that India witnessed the murder of four journalists (Rohit Kumar Biswal, Sudhir Saini, Juned Khan Pathan and Subhash Kumar Mahato) last year. Pakistan lost journalists Sadaf Naeem, Arshad Sharif, Muhammad Younis, Iftikhar Ahmed, Hasnain Shah, Murtaza Shar and Athar Mateen in different incidents. Bangladesh witnessed the killing of journalists Hashibur Rahaman Rubel, Mohiuddin Sarker Nayeem and Abdul Bari to assailants, whereas Myanmar lost Aye Kyaw and Pu Tui Dim to military atrocities in 2022.
