The body of Hemchandra Pandey, a freelance journalist killed along with Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad in an alleged gunfight with police, was late Tuesday brought to New Delhi, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) has reported. His body was brought to the capital by his wife Babita, his brother and a few human rights activists from Andhra Pradesh. Babita, who says that her husband was a freelance journalist and not a Maoist, was handed over the body by the police at Bellampally in Adilabad district.
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'The body will be taken to 7 Jantar Mantar, the office of prominent religious and social reformer Swami Agnivesh, where last respects will be paid Wednesday before he is cremated,' Ashish Gupta, a freelance journalist and president of Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, told IANS. 'Earlier we wanted to donate the body to AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), but the hospital administration refused to take the body as four-five days have passed after the postmortem was conducted. They said the body will not be of any use now,' Gupta said.
Babita denied police claims that Pandey was a Maoist and alleged that police killed him in a staged shootout after arresting him along with Azad in Nagpur. She demanded a thorough probe into the killing. She met Andhra Pradesh Home Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy, who ordered a probe into Pandey's identity.
A statement purportedly sent by the outlawed Communist Party of India-Masoit (CPI-Maoist) to some newspapers Sunday identified Pandey as a Maoist. However, a Maoist leader clarified that no such statement was issued.
CPI-Maoist politburo member and spokesman Azad and Pandey were Friday killed in the forests of Adilabad district bordering Maharashtra. Police said they were killed in a three-hour long gunfight but Maoists and rights activists allege that it was a staged shootout. Hailing from Uttarakhand, Pandey was based in Delhi and was reportedly working for some Hindi dailies.
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed shock at Pandey's death. The Indian Journalists’ Union (IJU), an IFJ affiliate, and its constituent unit, the Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ), have raised “serious doubts about the circumstances†of Pandey’s death and demanded “an inquiry by an independent authorityâ€.
Failure to do so, the APUWJ and the IJU said in a statement, would fuel perceptions that the killing was an attempt to “frighten and intimidate†journalists in the performance of their duties.
“Hem Chandra Pandey, like any journalist, was well within his rights in seeking to interview an insurgent leader, especially in the context of ongoing peace moves,†IFJ Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park said. “The IFJ extends its solidarity to Babita Pandey and the family of the killed journalist, and welcomes the Andhra Pradesh Home Minister’s announcement of a full inquiry.â€
IFJ urged that the inquiry be conducted by a fully empowered judicial authority within a defined timeframe.
There was some initial confusion over Pandey’s identity after a person allegedly speaking on behalf of the Maoist party claimed he was a member of its northern regional committee. This was swiftly denied by the official spokesperson of the underground outfit.
Pandey was involved in radical campus politics during his years as a university student in his home state of Uttarakhand. The organisation he was involved with is part of university life in many Indian campuses and its political affiliation to a party that has contested and won seats in India’s Parliament is transparent.
Pandey, who also wrote under the officially recognised alias of Hemant Pandey, was a contributor to leading Hindi-language dailies such as Nai Duniya, Rashtriya Sahara and Dainik Jagran. A portfolio of his recent writings shows a well-informed engagement with issues of wide social concern, such as inflation, food security and climate change. Nowhere does it reveal an advocacy of violence.
