NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation after a journalist’s battered body was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction.”
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected murder of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late Saturday.
Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.
Three people have been arrested.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India was ranked 159 last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
 

LONDON: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has executed Yemeni journalist Mohamed Al-Maqri after holding him captive for nine years, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Thursday.

Al-Maqri, a correspondent for the television channel Yemen Today, was abducted in 2015 while covering an anti-AQAP protest in Al-Mukalla, the capital of the southern governorate of Hadhramaut.

He was executed along with 10 other individuals after years of enforced disappearance.

“The killing of Mohamed Al-Maqri highlights the extreme dangers Yemeni journalists face while reporting from one of the world’s perilous conflict zones,”  said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA (Middle East and North Africa) program coordinator.

“Enforced disappearances continue to endanger their lives.”

Rezaian condemned the act and called for accountability, urging all factions in Yemen to abandon such “abhorrent practices.”

The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate also condemned the execution, saying it was working with “the relevant authorities to investigate the crime, prosecute the perpetrators, recover the journalist’s body, and deliver it to his family.”

Al-Maqri had been held incommunicado by AQAP since Oct. 12, 2015, following his abduction during the protest.

The group accused the individuals of “spying against the mujahedeen,” a label the group uses for its fighters.

His death underscores the increasing dangers for journalists operating in Yemen, where armed groups have targeted media professionals as part of broader efforts to suppress dissent and control narratives.

At least two other Yemeni journalists remain subjected to enforced disappearances, a practice characterized by abduction and the refusal to disclose a person’s fate or whereabouts.

Waheed Al-Sufi, the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Al-Arabiya, has been missing since April 2015 and is thought to be being held by the Houthi movement.

Naseh Shaker, who was last heard from on Nov. 19, 2024, is believed to be being held by the Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist organization in southern Yemen.

Yemen continues to rank among the deadliest countries for journalists, with armed conflict and factional violence leaving media workers vulnerable to abductions, disappearances, and killings.