Shivshankar Jha
Muzaffarpur/Geneva: A Muzaffarpur-based journalist succumbed to his wounds after he sustained multiple knife injuries when unidentified miscreants attacked him on June 25, 2024.
The victim was identified as Shivshankar Jha. He used to work for several Hindi media outlets.
His family members claimed that the local liquor mafia was involved in the murder. The allegation raises several questions about the liquor sale in ‘dry’ Bihar. It may be noted that the sale and consumption of liquor is banned in the state.
Forty-year-old Jha was attacked near his residence at Maripur village of Muzaffarpur in north Bihar. Jha was seriously wounded in the attack. He was taken to a nearby hospital, but the attending doctors declared him dead.
Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign, the global media safety and rights body, expresses shock over the murder of the Indian journalist based in Bihar on Tuesday evening and demands a fair probe into the incident to identify the culprits for necessary legal actions.
“Shivshankar Jha becomes the 2nd journalist to be killed this year in India and 57th victim across the world since 1 January. We express profound grief over the incident and demand a fair probe so that the culprits can be punished under the law. PEC will urge Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to take initiatives to investigate the matter and duly compensate the bereaved family properly,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC.
PEC’s South Asia representative Nava Thakuria revealed that India earlier lost television journalist Ashutosh Shrivastava, who worked for Sudarshan News and was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2024.
India’s immediate neighbour Pakistan witnessed the killing of seven media persons namely Khalil Afridi Jibran, Nasrullah Gadani, Kamran Dawar, Mehar Ashfaq Siyal, Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal, Jam Saghir Ahmad Lar and Tahira Nosheen Rana.
India’s other neighbour Myanmar lost one scribe, Ko Myat Thu Tun, to military atrocities during this period.
– global bihari bureau
