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Uttar Pradesh, India
A journalist, Haider Khan, who works as a stringer for a local TV channel and reported on a case of alleged land grabbing, was severely beaten by a group of men and tied to a motorcycle and dragged for almost 100 meters (330 feet) in Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, June 13, 2015.
Khan was alleged invited by the assailants to a meeting under the pretext of providing information regarding a recent robbery case, and upon arrival, was attacked.
Two weeks ago, another journalist, Jagendra Singh -- A Hindu, not a Sikh, plying his profession in the heart of the Hindi/Hindu belt of India -- sustained fatal burn injuries during a police raid on his home in Shahjahanpur district in Uttar Pradesh as well.
Jagendra had reportedly angered the state’s senior politicians with several posts on his Facebook page about allegations of encroachment of land and a gang-rape by them.
Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Ram Murti Verma was named in several of Jagendra Singh’s posts.
The journalist was set on fire by policemen on June 1, 2015 during a raid at his house at Vikas Colony in Sadar Bazar, Shahjahanpur.
Jagendra died during the treatment at a hospital in Lucknow on 8 June, 2015.
The video footage of dying declaration has gone viral on news channels and social media showing Jagendra Singh saying, "Why did they have to burn me? If the Minister and his goons had a grudge, they could have beaten me instead of pouring kerosene and burning me."
Days after the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister was accused of orchestrating the murder, another state Minister on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, publicly defended him by referring to the incident as 'law of nature'.
"There are some incidents which are pre-decided. It is the law of the nature," Uttar Pradesh Horticulture Minister Paras Nath Yadav said.
[Courtesy: Foreign Policy. Edited for sikhchic.com]
June 16, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), June 17, 2015, 6:45 AM.
To call these people 'animals' is an insult to animals! There is no morality, ethics or humanity to be found ... However there is always a 'karmic' or poetic justice and they will always get their just desserts some where, some time ...
2: Raj (Canada), June 17, 2015, 11:59 AM.
Indians are not fit to rule, not even themselves. That's why the land was repeatedly conquered and ruled by foreigners.
3: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), June 17, 2015, 4:01 PM.
@ S. Baldev Singh ji: Your comment applies to both the journalists and the people who are killing them. If journalists are being killed in India for telling the truth, it is because they were being paid to tell lies for decades. The Indian media's program to malign and tarnish the image of the Sikhs as terrorists and their sympathizers for decades is directly related to the sorry affairs of the Indian media today.
4: Arjan Singh (USA), June 18, 2015, 12:00 PM.
Yes, Sunny ji, it is true that journalists were being paid to tell lies for decades. To some extent the Sikh community did drop the ball and made the job easier for these unscrupulous journalists. Had the Sikh community created a sophisticated media machine to counter the outright false and deceitful propaganda against the Sikh Community, its image would not have been tarnished. Is there even a single journalist in the Sikh community of the caliber of Arundhati Roy who maybe publishing the truth about the Sikh community or about India in general? The short answer, sadly, is NO.