The murder of a journalist in Ballia has been linked to personal rivalry born out of a land dispute and not to any journalistic or political enmity.
On Monday night, Ratan Singh, a stringer with a newspaper and a television channel, was beaten by rods and shot dead in the village of Phephna. The incident happened a mere 100 metres away from the local police station and close to the home of the village headman.
According to Singh’s father Vinod, his son had been summoned to the headman’s house around 8.30pm on Monday. “My son had sensed there was some danger to his life and had called the thana in-charge, Shashimauli Pandey, to express his concern. The in-charge did nothing and my son lost his life”, Vinod said.
A year ago, Vinod’s elder son had died of a heart attack, which the family alleges was brought on by a protracted land dispute with some other landowners of the village. Cross-FIRs were filed by both parties involved in the dispute in November 2019.
“No action was ever taken on our FIR. Had the police been proactive, I would not have lost both my sons,” Vinod said.
Phephna is the constituency of Upendra Tiwari, who holds minister of state (independent charge) portfolios for sports, youth welfare and panchayati raj in the state government. The murder, whatever be its reasons, holds a mirror to the rising spurt of crimes in the state. In July, Vikram Joshi, a Ghaziabad-based journalist, was murdered after he had complained to the local police about harassment of his niece. The complaint had elicited no response and a few days later, Joshi was shot in the head as he was returning home with his two daughters on a motorcycle.
The Phephna thana in-charge has been suspended for dereliction of duty.
The state’s chief minister has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakhs for the family of the deceased and asked for strict action to be taken against the accused.
The FIR filed in the case names 10 people. Of these six had been arrested by Tuesday morning. Five of those who are accused of the crime had been named in the earlier FIR filed by the deceased’s family.
