Journalist shot dead in UP for complaining against land grabbing

Lodging complaints with the authorities against 'land mafias', who had grabbed large tracts of government land proved fatal for a journalist in Uttar Pradesh.

The journalist, identified as Shubham Mani Tripathi, who was associated with a local Hindi newspaper, was shot dead in UP's Unnao district, about 6KM from Lucknow, on Friday (June 19) evening.

According to the police sources, Tripathi was sprayed with bullets by two assailants on Unnao-Shuklaganj Road in the district while he was on the way home with a friend of his on a motorbike.

Sources said that Tripathi, who was it in his head, died on the spot while his friend managed to run to safety.

Sources said that Tripathi had lodged several complaints against a saffron leader, who was a listed land mafia and had grabbed large tracts of government land.

His friend, who was witness to the incident, alleged that the journalist was killed by the goons of the saffron leader. Police said that a case was lodged and the investigation was on.

The incident comes close on the heels of an FIR against a senior journalist of a Delhi based news portal for allegedly 'misrepresenting' facts about the village adopted by prime minister Narendra Modi in the latter's Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi.

The police said that the FIR was lodged after a woman from SC community lodged a complaint that the journalist, identified as Supriya Sharma, for 'misquoting' her in her (Supriya) report.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday slammed the UP government for FIR against the journalist. ''You (state govt) can not hide the truth by registering FIR...things can be changed by bringing out the truth but the UP government is getting scribes, former officials and opposition leaders booked, when they do so,'' Priyanka said in a Tweet.

Earlier also an FIR had been lodged against a senior Delhi based journalist over his report on chief minister Yogi Adityanath's visit to Ayodhya during the lockdown.