PEC condemns murder of Bihar scribe, demands punishment to perpetrators

May 25: Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) has strongly condemned the murder of   journalist Subhash Kumar Mahato, who hailed from  Begusarai locality of Bihar in central India on 20 May 2022. The global media safety and rights body also demanded punishments under the law to all four identified gunmen who targeted Subhash (27)  outside his residence in Sankhu village.

Local media outlets in  Patna reveal that Subhash used to report on sand, land and liquor mafias in his locality for a cable news channel. On the fateful night he was returning home from a friend’s house along with some relatives. The culprits shot at him in front of dome family members who immediately took the scribe to a nearby health centre where he was declared dead. The victim’s family has named four persons in the police complaint.

“We urge the Bihar government chief Nitish Kumar for a high level probe in to the scribe’s murder. As the State police claim that all four perpetrators have been identified, we expect they will be brought to  justice under law of the land,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC (www.pressemblem.ch). Subhash becomes the 59th media-worker to be killed in 2022 and the fourth victim (after Rohit Kumar Biswal from Odisha, Sudhir Saini from Uttar Pradesh and Juned Khan Pathan from Gujarat) in India. Ukraine and Mexico are the most dangerous countries in the globe so far, reveals the PEC figure.

Describing about Subhash, PEC’s India representative Nava Thakuria informs that he studied journalism at a Darbhanga University and worked for a number of Hindi daily newspapers like  Rashtriya Sahara, Dainik Bihar, etc. lately he was working for City News Begusarai. Moreover he ran his own YouTube channel Aap Tak which enjoyed visible audience supports.