SCRIBE BEATEN TO DEATH IN J’KHAND WAS FACING THREATS
A 32-year-old journalist with a Hindi daily was allegedly abducted months after he had lodged a police complaint saying he feared for his life and was beaten to death in Jharkhand’s Chatra district late on Monday, police said on Tuesday.
Chandan Tiwary, the journalist, was found critically injured in Chatra’s Baltharwa forest, hours after some unidentified men on a motorcycle abducted him from Pathalgadda.
Police rushed him to Simaria Referral Hospital, where he was declared dead.
Tiwary had reported a threat to his life to the police in April.
He had accused Mahesh Dangi, the husband of Pathalgadda mukhiya (village head), Renuka Devi, of threatening him with dire consequences after he had exposed “irregularities” in Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana (affordable housing scheme) and construction of sheds for goat rearing on the social media.
“I fear the threat from Mahesh, Md Serajul and a para teacher Devaki Dangi,” he had said in the written complaint to the police on April 6. Neither Devi nor others could be reached for comments. Chatra police superintendent Akhilesh B Verior called Tiwary’s murder “a highly sensitive case” and said they “have accorded highest priority in identifying the culprits involved in the murder at the earliest”. “We are also ensuring the highest level of supervision over the ongoing investigation into the death of the scribe.”
He said a Special Investigation Team has been formed to probe the murder.