By Nava Thakuria*
Guwahati: Mourning the untimely demise of a young television reporter at Lakhimpur Kheri locality of Uttar Pradesh, Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the Geneva-based media rights body, demanded an authentic probe into the incident that led to killing of Raman Kashyap on 3 October 2021.
Raman (35) was recently hit by a vehicle amidst a chaotic situation where a large group of agitating farmers (against farm laws brought by the Union government in New Delhi) were in confrontations with some political workers. Raman along with many reporters was present there to cover an event, but Raman lost his life on the spot. Later the agitators set the vehicle on fire and finally eight others died in the violent incident.
Raman’s family members claimed that he was also shot by the miscreants. Hailed from Nighasan village, Raman used to work for a news channel and left behind his wife, two minor children and other relatives. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, while expressing grief over the unfortunate incident, announced a compensatory package to family members of all the deceased.
“Raman Kashyap is the 59th journalists killed so far in 2021 across the globe. A day back, Afghan scribe Sayyed Marof Saadat was shot dead by miscreants at Nangarhar locality of Afghanistan,” said Blaise Lempen, general secretary of PEC (https://pressemblem.ch/), adding that 92 media persons lost their lives to assailants last year around the world.
India earlier lost journalist Ashu Yadav (hauled from Kanpur in UP), Sulabh Srivastava (Lucknow, UP) and Chenna Keshav (Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh) and Manish Kumar Singh (Champaran, Bihar) to assailants since 1 January 2021. Acclaimed Indian photo journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed by the Taliban in Kandahar of Afghanistan. The populous country this time may improve in the journo-murder index compared to 2020 that ended with 15 media casualties.
*Nava Thakuria is a senior journalist and India representative of PEC
