There were two motives for the murder of Rakesh Singh Nirbhik: his journalism and a dispute over payments.
Lucknow:
A 37-year-old journalist and his friend died last week in Uttar Pradesh after being torched with disinfectant by three men who broke into their home, police said. All three attackers, including Pradhan’s son or a village chief, have been arrested.
On Friday, Rakesh Singh Nirbhik, who used to write for Lucknow-based newspaper Rashtriya Swaroop, along with his friend Pintu Sahu, 34, were found badly burned inside the journalist’s home in a Balrampur village, a about 160 km from the state capital. Lucknow. Although Mr. Sahu had already died, Mr. Nirbhik was rushed to a hospital in Lucknow where he died a few hours later.
Before dying, Mr. Nirbhik told hospital officials that he had been writing regularly about the alleged corruption of the local village gram Pradhan and his son. “This is the price for reporting the truth,” the journalist can be heard saying in a 2.5-minute video even as he cries in agony.
Three days after the incident, on Monday, Balrampur police said they had arrested three people for the crime. One of them, Rinku Mishra, is the son of the pradhan. The other defendants are Akram, who is facing criminal cases, including murder, and his friend Lalit Mishra.
Police said the men sprayed the victims with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before setting them on fire.
“The defendants were trying to cover up the crime by making it look like an accident. But there were a lot of loopholes and we understood that it was a conspiracy,” Balrampur Police Chief Dev Ranjan Verma said at a news conference Monday night.
There were two motives for the killings, police said: One was Mr. Nirbhik’s journalism. The other was a payment dispute that Mr. Sahu had with Rinku Mishra.
“On 27 (November), Lalit (Mishra) and Pintu (Sahu) had an argument outside a beer bar and there was a fight,” said the Balrampur police chief.
The attackers allegedly got the victims drunk with alcohol before setting them on fire. Police said more people will be questioned in the case and more arrests will be made if necessary.
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