Javed Iqbal: The Killing of Journalist Nemichand Jain
The murder of a local journalist in Sukma is indicative of the fragility of the fine line local journalists have to work within to survive in the Red Corridor
There has always been a line that has just moved into a downward spiral for the safety and integrity of journalists with the brutal execution of a journalist in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on the 13th of February, 2013. Nemi Chand Jain’s body was found on the road, his neck slit, with a note claiming that he was an informant. He was 45 years old and wrote for the Hindi-dailies Haribhoomi and Dainik Bhaskar and had over 20 years of experience in journalism, both as a distributor and as a journalist.
An initial note the police recovered from the site claimed that the Maoists have accused him of working as an informant for the police for the past three years, yet there have been questions regarding the authenticity of the note. It was signed by the ‘Kanker Ghati Darbha Division’ which many observers claim does not exist. Acccording to a report by Ashutosh Bharadwaj in the Indian Express, another note appeared a few days later where the Maoists denied responsibility, which was followed by another one that claims that he was indeed killed as he was an informant. The same report quotes the Superintendent of police Sukma, Abhishek Shandilya, who mentions, ‘Jain was very close to them. Why they would kill him is puzzling.’
Other claims exist that mention he was killed due to personal enmity with someone else in the area or that he was murdered by smugglers. Reports and local journalists have repeatedly indicated that Nemichand Jain had an argument with a group of villagers a few days before his murder.In his blog, Kanker-based journalist Kamal Shukla has no doubts that the Maoists have been responsible for his killing, indicating that there was a Jan Sabha held a few days ago where Jain was instrumental if freeing the individual the Maoists were trying. Yet while the question of why he was killed and who killed him is yet to be answered, certain mainstream reports have already blamed the Maoists, without really trying to understand the relationship the local media have with both the state and the rebels.
In the red corridor, there has always been an underlying reality that every local journalist who lives in the area, has to deal with the threats and violence of the police and the Naxalites, and sometimes has no option but to work as informants. A local journalist had once even informed the police of my presence in the area. And there is no way one can blame him for it, for he has to live in the district within a delicate balance, and try to keep his relationship as cordial with the police as well as the Naxalites. So if Nemi Chand Jain was killed for being an informant, then the Naxalites will kill all the local journalists in Bastar.
Another grey area is that a journalist is an informant by default, one simply needs to enter into a police station and find that the police are reading Arundhati Roy’s Gandhians With Guns. They now have photos of the young adivasi girl who liked to watch ‘ambush videos’. Or they can visit a well-known journalist’s facebook page and download his group photo with the rebels which he has as a profile picture. In 2009, when I asked how the police knew the man they gunned down was a Maoist, he showed me a photograph of a man I saw ten minutes ago on a gunny sack outside the police station, bullet holes in his chest, with dead brown eyes, now in a photograph posing with an AK47, looking straight into the camera, alive, once upon a time.
There are too many underlying grey areas in a situation where the burning of the villages of in Pidiya Panchayat in Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh, where 31 homes in over four different hamlets were burnt down by the police on the 21st – 23rd of January, 2013, and was never reported in the local press and barely even touched the mainstream media.. Read more:
http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/reporting-the-grey-corridor-the-killing-of-journalist-nemichand-jain/
Maoists say sorry for killing Bastar journalist
Maoists say sorry for killing Bastar journalist
Forty-five days after their cadres murdered journalist Nemichand Jain in Sukma on February 12, Maoists have apologised for the act and said their topmost leaders are handling the case. They have also requested Bastar journalists to end their boycott. In an unprecedented step, the entire media fraternity in Bastar had passed a resolution announcing the boycott of Maoists and their press releases until they apologised for the murder and punished the guilty. The rebels called a few journalists to interior forests of Bijapur and apologised for Jain's death. West Bastar divisional committee, CPI (Maoists), members Kamlu Kunjam and Jyoti met the journalists and said: "We have received information about the murder of Jain by some Sangham members of Kanger Ghati area. Since we are yet to identify the accused, senior leaders are facing problems in taking a decision. But very soon, the central committee will probe the matter and inform media about it. Some of our cadres have committed this wrong. We apologise and request you not to boycott us." Kunjam added: "Lower-level cadres committed the act without informing the senior ones. The committee will announce punishment for them." Jagdalpur-based journalist Harjit Singh Pappu was among those who met the rebels. "We had gone for our cause. We are happy that they have apologised. I hope they punish the culprits soon and inform us," he told The Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/maoists-say-sorry-for-killing-bastar-journalist/1095462/