Vimal Kumar Yadav
Raniganj: Vimal Kumar Yadav, a young scribe associated with the leading Hindi newspaper, Dainik Jagran, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Prem Nagar area under Raniganj police station in Araria district of Bihar this morning.
Reports suggest that the 38-year-old Yadav was shot dead by at least two miscreants. The killers targeted him from a short range and escaped from the place. Yadav was taken to a nearby hospital, but the attending doctors declared him dead. He left behind his wife, a daughter and a host of relatives. Yadav’s younger brother Shashibhushan was also killed by unidentified gunmen in 2019.
Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the Geneva-based global media safety and rights body, condemned the murder of the journalist and demanded a high-level probe into the incident to unearth the motive behind the assassination as well as punish the perpetrators under the law.
“It’s shocking that a young reporter has been killed by armed miscreants in his own locality. Vimal Kumar Yadav becomes the 34th journalist to be killed this year till date. India has a bad name for delivering swift justice to the bereaved journo-families. We urge Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take personal interest to book the culprits and punish them with no impunity,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC.
PEC’s South Asia representative Nava Thakuria informed that the Bihar scribe was receiving threats from some individuals as he pursued the ongoing trials of his brother’s assassination in 2019.
Incidentally, Yadav was a primary witness to the murder and thus he seems to be the target of those criminals, said Thakuria, adding that India earlier witnessed the killings of Shashikant Warishe of Maharashtra on February 7, 2023, and Abdur Rauf Alamgir of Assam on June 26, 2023. Its neighbours Pakistan lost three journalists (Imtiaz Baig, Jan Mohammed Mahar and Ghulam Asghar Khand) and Bangladesh’s two scribes (Ashiqul Islam and Golam Rabbani Nadim) to assailants since January 1, 2023.
– global bihari bureau
