Killed

CPJ mourns the tragic deaths of our colleagues Anju Sharma of the Hindustan Times; Sanjiv Sinha of the Indian Express; Ranjan Jha of the television news channel Aaj Tak; and Gopal Bisht, cameraman for Aaj Tak. All four journalists were killed on September 30 when their chartered plane crashed during a flight between New Delhi and Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh State. Four other passengers, including the...

In a 21 August 2000 letter to the chief minister of the Indian State of Manipur, W. Nipamacha Singh, RSF expressed concern over the murder of Thounaojam Brajamani Singh, editor of the daily "Manipur News". The organisation urged the minister to do everything in his power to establish "the exact motives for the murder" and asked to be kept informed of progress in the inquiry. "The journalist had...

In an 11 August 2000 letter to Syed Salahuddin, Supreme Commander of the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, CPJ condemned the 10 August bomb attack in Srinagar, which killed one journalist and seriously injured at least six others. Pradeep Bhatia, a photographer for the Indian newspaper "The Hindustan Times", was one of twelve people killed in the attack, police told reporters. Hezb-ul Mujahedeen spokesman Salim...

In a letter to the head minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Karunanidhi, RSF expressed its concern after the murder of V. Selvaraj, a journalist with the biweekly "Nakkeeran". Robert Ménard, the organisation's secretary general, urged him to do everything possible to establish "the exact motives for the murder." RSF asked the head minister to inform it of progress in the inquiry. According to information...

In a 15 October 1999 letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, RSF expressed its indignation over the murder of N. A. Lalrohlu, editor of the local vernacular newspaper "Shan". RSF asked that "a serious and thorough investigation is conducted to identify and punish the authors of the murder, which seems to be a serious warning to independent journalists in the state of Manipur." RSF also drew...

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...

CPJ is expressing its deep dismay over the brutal murder of Shivani Bhatnagar, special correspondent for the prestigious English-language daily newspaper “The Indian Express”. On 23 January 1999, unknown assailants entered Bhatnagar’s East Delhi apartment, strangled her with a length of wire, and then stabbed her in the neck and abdomen with kitchen knives. Bhatnagar had been at home alone...

The 16 March 1997 slaying in Kashmir of Saidain Shafi, a contributor to programs carried on the official Indian television network Doordarshan, marks the second time in 1997 that a Kashmiri broadcast journalist has been killed and the eighth time that a journalist has been assassinated in Kashmir since an armed insurgency against Indian rule broke out in late 1989. On 16 March, two unidentified...

Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, a news reader for the state-owned Doordarshan Kendra television station in Srinagar, Kashmir, was assassinated on 1 January 1997 by suspected militant separatists. Three unidentified men entered the Crown Hotel, owned by Faktoo's family, in Srinagar's heavily patrolled LalChowk area. They fired two shots at the journalist with a silencer pistol before fleeing the scene. No one...

On 17 May 1996, journalist and human rights activist Parag Kumar Das was shot by unidentified gunmen in Guwahati, in the northeastern state of Assam. Das, the editor-in-chief of the daily "Asomiya Pratidin", was picking his son up from school when three men drove up in an automobile and opened fire. Das was shot at least eight times. His seven year-old son, Rohan Das, sustained an injury to his...