Patna/Geneva: The murder of a 27-year-old journalist Subhash Kumar Mahato, who hailed from Begusarai on 20 May 2022, highlights that the sand, land and liquor mafia of Bihar are on a rampage.
Local media outlets in Patna reveal that Subhash used to report on sand, land and liquor mafias in his locality for a cable news channel. On the fateful night, he was returning home from a friend’s house along with some relatives. The culprits shot at him outside his house in Sankhu village right in front of his family members, who immediately took the scribe to a nearby health centre where he was declared dead. The victim’s family has named four persons in the police complaint.
Offering details about Subhash, Nava Thakuria, a senior journalist and India representative of Geneva-based global media safety and rights body Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), said he studied journalism at the Darbhanga University and worked for a number of Hindi daily newspapers like Rashtriya Sahara, Dainik Bihar, etc. Lately, he was working for City News, Begusarai. Moreover, he ran his own YouTube channel Aap Tak which enjoyed a considerably good viewership.
In Geneva, the PEC strongly condemned the murder of Mahato and demanded punishments under the law for all four identified gunmen who targeted Subhash outside his residence in Sankhu village.
“We urge the Bihar government chief Nitish Kumar for a high-level probe into the scribe’s murder. As the State police claim that all four perpetrators have been identified, we expect they will be brought to justice under law of the land,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC.
Subhash becomes the 59th media worker to be killed in 2022 and the fourth victim (after Rohit Kumar Biswal from Odisha, Sudhir Saini from Uttar Pradesh and Juned Khan Pathan from Gujarat) in India. Ukraine and Mexico are the most dangerous countries in the globe so far, reveals the PEC.
Meanwhile, of late, at least two instances have further brought into focus rampant illegal sand mining as well as illicit liquor trade going on right under the nose of the authorities in Bihar.
A National Family Health survey 2019-2020 report showed that Bihar apparently consumes more liquor than Maharashtra despite the prohibition being in force since 2016. In fact, citing the report, The Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) had written to all the ruling National Democratic Alliance constituents in Bihar in November last year that 90% of the illegal sale of liquor is among poor and backward people. It had pointed out that liquor-related cases had not only badly affected judicial administration but had also led to the overflowing of jails as there are over 4.5 lakh liquor-related cases pending in the state.
As far as illegal sand mining is concerned, it was thoroughly exposed when several boats loaded with sand capsized when a severe storm hit the state earlier this month.
– global bihari bureau
