Mandi District Press Parishad on Monday called upon the President, Prime Minister, and Chief Justice of India to take immediate steps for dispensing justice to the family of a journalist Jagendra Singh, who was mercilessly killed by burning alive in Shajahanpur of UP by the goons of minister Ram Murti Verma of Uttar Pradesh, who has not been arrested so far.
“Only CBI inquiry can do justice,” unanimously resolved the Press Club. The reporter had apparently invited the ire of the minister by posting reports on face-book about the illegal mining activities and land grabbing by the musclemen of Verma.
According to the FIR lodged by the son of the victim, Verma sent a team of policemen to the house of Jagendra Singh who doused him in kerosene oil and set on fire. The video clips of the harrowing details of the heinous crime are gory in details.
The Press Parishad has noted with utmost grief and anguish that even the immediate dismissal of the UP government might not meet the ends of justice. The state of UP seemed to have passed on to the hands of law-breakers, musclemen and miscreants who were having a field day and the Akhilesh Government seemed to be a mere silent spectator.
According to the footage of the dying declaration the victim reporter, he had been pleading pathetically, “let you beat me as much as you like, but do not burn me.”