CPJ is deeply disturbed by the murder of Anil Rattan, a free-lance journalist and former correspondent for the Hong Kong-based magazine "AsiaWeek". Rattan's killing marks the third murder of a journalist in the Indian capital in less than two months.
Police say that Rattan's body was discovered in the bathroom of his Delhi apartment on 20 March 1999 "in a highly decomposed condition," and estimate that he was killed around 18 March. According to police reports, Rattan had been stabbed several times and strangled either with a length of wire found lying near the body or with his undershirt.
Rattan's murder bears striking similarities to the 23 January killing of Shivani Bhatnagar, an investigative reporter for the English-language daily newspaper "The Indian Express" who was stabbed repeatedly and strangled with a piece of wire in her East Delhi apartment (see IFEX alerts of 10 February and 28 January 1999). On 13 March, police found the body of Irfan Hussain, a sometimes controversial political cartoonist for the English-language news magazine "Outlook", off a highway in New Delhi. His body showed signs of extreme torture.
