Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad affirmed that the Uttar Pradesh Government should go for a full-fledged inquiry into the death of Shahjahanpur-based journalist Jagendra Singh who was allegedly burned alive over a Facebook post against a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader. Notably, Singh’s family claimed that a police officer allegedly had set the journalist on fire. He succumbed to his injuries while being taken to hospital. “We are shocked by the incident. We strongly condemn the incident,” he said. “A Cabinet minister of Uttar Pradesh was named in the FIR. In view of the grim magnitude of the incident, the UP Government should form a special investigation team (SIT) with an efficient police officer as its head to conduct an independent and fair inquiry,” Justice Prasad said while interacting with the mediapersons in Dehradun on Wednesday.
He said the PCI will soon constitute a committee to find out how it had happened. “Some members would go to Shahjahanpur on a fact-finding visit. They would also interact with the local people. After the report is received, the PCI would ask the State Government to take appropriate steps to have the alleged murder rightly probed,” he added.
Sounding deeply concerned over the incident, a PCI member K Amarnath said such attacks on journalists have been on the rise in the country for the last 25 years as per the inputs received from various sources. “Probes of two such recent cases in Chhatisgarh and one in Madhya Pradesh where the journalists were either murdered or attacked have been handed over to CBI by the respective State Government, thanks to the PCI initiatives,” he said. “We always insist that inquiries of such cases should be done by specially constituted SIT. Besides, we demand that such cases should be heard in the fast track court,” he added.