Journalist Shot Dead in UP, Police Arrests Eight

On Monday night, a journalist named Vikram Joshi was shot by some men when he was travelling on bike with his two daughters. The incident happened near Joshi’s home in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad. He worked for Jan Sagar Today. He had a bullet injury on head and was rushed to a private hospital, where he succumbed to the injuries.

The family of the victim suspects the murder as a consequence of a police complaint filed by Joshi that some people were harassing his niece. The complaint was filed on 16^th July.

The police have arrested eight people in the case. The local officer in-charge has also been suspended on charges of negligence. He allegedly did not take appropriate action on the complaint, which led to the incident. The video of the attack went viral on Tuesday.

However, this is not the first time for a person to be attacked by goons after filing assault case. The incident recalls the infamous Unnao rape case of 2017. The case involved names like Kuldeep Singh Sengar. At that time Sengar was a BJP leader. He was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl.

When the victim filed a complaint, her family was harassed. The victim’s father was killed in judicial custody in suspicious circumstances. A year later, she was attacked by an unidentified truck, in which her family members had died. In the accident the victim and her lawyer were also injured.

Sengar was suspended from the party and in 2019, was given lifetime in jail. However, the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh does not seen to have changed in these years. In December 2019, a rape victim was set ablaze by the accused on her way to court in Unnao, UP.

The crime rate in UP has gone up from 128 in 2016 to 153.5 in 2018. While, UP contributes to 17.35 percent in India’s population, its crime rate contributes to 10.9 percent according to National Crime Records Bureau’s data of 2018. The percentage share of UP in 2016 was 9.5 percent. This raises serious questions on law and order situation of UP and the government’s claim of reducing the crime rate, especially in light of the recent encounters that took place in UP.

Written By Rashi, She is doing her Masters in Convergent Journalism from Jamia AJK MCRC, New Delhi.

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