NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded an intensive investigation after a journalist’s battered physique was discovered stuffed in a septic tank coated with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported broadly on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a preferred YouTube channel “Bastar Junction”.
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected homicide of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “information of the case” in an announcement late Saturday (Jan 4).
Chandrakar’s physique was discovered on Jan 3 after police tracked his cell phone data following his household reporting him lacking.
Three individuals have been arrested.
Greater than 10,000 individuals have died within the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they’re combating for the rights of marginalised indigenous individuals in India’s resource-rich central areas.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP), known as Chandrakar’s dying “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for these discovered accountable.
India was ranked 159 final yr on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters With out Borders.
