On November 12, the charred body of journalist and Right to Information (RTI) activist Avinash Jha was discovered lying on the side of the road. Jha had been exposing unlicensed private clinics operating in his village in the Madhubani district of Bihar. Among those arrested for the crime the following Sunday were two persons associated with local private nursing homes. Jha’s family alleged that he had been killed for uncovering this ‘medical mafia’.
The Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ) Global Impunity Index, published on October 28 noted that in 81% of cases where journalists have been murdered, no one has been held accountable. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found that 50 journalists were murdered in 2020.
Every seven days, a journalist gets killed somewhere in the world.
The Wire‘s Sumit Mishra explains this trend that is seeing more and more journalists being murdered and the failure of authorities to hold those responsible to account.
