There seems to be no end to attacks on journalists in India, with the recent case of death of a reporter in Mumbai on Friday, July 17. Raghavendra Dubey, a key witness to a brutal assault on journalists Santosh Mishra and Shashi Sharma, who had gone to cover a bar raid was found dead near S1 Lodging and Boarding in the Mira Road area.
According to reports, the two journalists had gone to cover a police raid in White House orchestra bar on Mira Road (East) where 14 dancer girls were rescued and a few employees were taken into custody at 1 am on Friday. The journalists were brutally attacked with sticks and rods by the bar employees despite the fact that a police chowky was only 100 metres away from the bar. The police, once they got to know about the incident, called Dubey who came at 3 am and assured him of necessary action. He left the police station at 5 am. He was later found dead with severe head injuries. “We have detained six bar employees in connection with the assault. We are verifying whether Dubey’s death is linked with the same incident,” Rajesh Pradhan, superintendent of police, Thane rural, said according to a HT report .
Another incident happened in Santa Cruz where a female journalist working for a Marathi TV channel was allegedly molested and attacked while covering a cylinder blast accident in which four people were killed. Manashree Pathak along with cameraman Narayan Parmar were stopped from covering the incident by agitating men who later attacked them. Fellow journalists and by-standers who tried to rescue them were also attacked, according to a mid-day report . The video doesn’t capture more than the screengrab here.
The list of assaults on journalists continues to grow in the recent months with many incidents reported from across the country, in what looks like a worrying trend.
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