Indian journalist beaten to death

NEW DELHI: A reporter covering political unrest in India’s northeast was beaten to death during violent clashes, officials said yesterday, two weeks after the high-profile murder of another prominent journalist.

Shantanu Bhowmick was set upon with sticks as he reported on violence between warring political factions and police outside Agartala, capital of the remote Tripura state, on Wednesday.

State police superintendent Abhijit Saptarshi said more than a dozen officers were also injured in the fracas and tensions remained high in the region.

“We later found the journalist’s body at the site of the clashes,” he told AFP.

No arrests have yet been made in connection with the reporter’s death, but four people were detained on separate charges related to the political violence.

Bhowmick’s death brings the number of reporters killed in India since the early 1990s to 29, according to figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

It comes just a fortnight after the murder of Gauri Lankesh, a newspaper editor and outspoken critic of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The 55-year-old was shot dead by three unknown gunmen as she entered her home in the southern city of Bangalore in the state of Karnataka on Sept 5.

No one has yet been identified or arrested in connection with the killing.

In 2015, India was ranked the deadliest country in Asia for journalists by Reporters Without Borders – although most deaths occur in remote rural areas away from the major urban centres. – AFP