Guwahati, 12th August 2021: Facing the heat of global outcries by a number of international media rights & safety bodies, Andhra Pradesh police in central India arrested two murder-accused of Nandyal based television scribe Chenna Keshav.
After their arrest on Monday night, both of them were produced before a local court on 10 August 2021, which sent them to 14days of judicial custody.
Keshav (35), who worked as a reporter with EV5 YouTube channel, was stabbed to death by suspended police constable Venkata Subbaiah and his relative Nageswara Rao (Nani) on 8 August.
It is understood that Keshav was targeted because of his series of reports on corruption and gambling issues against the policeman.
Subbaiah has already faced departmental suspension because of media reports narrating his illegitimate activities.
Kurnool district police assumed that Subbaiah had intentionally killed the young reporter after calling him for discussions. Keshav was taken to a nearby hospital with serious wounds, but he succumbed to injuries.
Besides the Andhra Pradesh media fraternity, global outfits like Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), Paris based Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF), New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Brussels based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Vienna based International Press Institute, etc expressed shock at Keshav’s murder and demanded actions against the criminals.
“Keshav’s assassination is the third incident of journo-killings during 2021 in the populous democratic country. The State government, led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, should do the needful to punish the culprits under relevant laws. There must be no impunity,” said Blaise Lempen, general secretary of PEC (www.pressemblem.ch/).
Last year, India recorded the highest number of journalists killed worldwide with 15 fatalities among 92 media persons killed in different countries. PEC documents 46 journalists who lost their lives across the globe since 1st January this year, where Afghanistan tops the list with 5 journo-victims followed by Mexico & Pakistan (3 each), Bangladesh (2), Colombia (1), etc.
“India has slightly improved so far its media casualties to violence compared to last year, even though the country has lost the highest number of journalists to Covid-19 (over 250 casualties) in the world,” said Nava Thakuria, PEC’s country representative, adding that in the first half of 2021, it lost two journalists (Ashu Yadav and Sulabh
Srivastava) to assailants.
This information has been given in a press release.
