Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the Geneva-based media rights body condoles the demise of young television scribe Raman Kashyap at Lakhimpur Kheri locality of Uttar Pradesh in central India and demands an authentic probe into the incident that led to the killing of the rural reporter on 3 October 2021.

According to local sources, Raman (35) was hit by a vehicle amidst a chaotic situation where a large group of agitating farmers (against farm laws brought by the Union government in New Delhi) was in confrontations with some political workers. He was along with many reporters at the site to cover an event, but Raman turned unlucky and died on the spot. Later the agitators set the vehicle on fire and finally, eight others died in the violent incident.

Raman’s family members claimed that he was also shot by the miscreants. Hailed from  Nighasan village, Raman used to work for a news channel and left behind his wife,  two minor children and other relatives. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, while expressing grief over the unfortunate incident, announced a compensatory package to family members of all the deceased.

“Raman Kashyap is the 59th journalist killed so far in 2021 across the globe. A day back, Afghan scribe Sayyed Marof Saadat was shot dead by miscreants at  Nangarhar locality of Afghanistan,” said Blaise Lempen,  general secretary of PEC (https://pressemblem.ch/), adding that  92 media persons lost their lives to assailants last year around the world.

India earlier lost journalist Ashu Yadav (hauled from Kanpur in UP), Sulabh Srivastava (Lucknow, UP) and Chenna Keshav (Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh), Manish Kumar Singh (Champaran, Bihar) to assailants since 1 January 2021. Acclaimed Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was killed by the Taliban in Kandahar of Afghanistan. PEC’s India representative Nava Thakuria expects that the populous country may improve in the journo-murder index this year compared to 2020 that ended with 15 media casualties.

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