UP Journalist allegedly murdered using sanitizer
A journalist from Uttar Pradesh and his friend was killed last week after they were set on fire with an alcohol based sanitizer by three men who muscled into his home. Out of the three one of the attackers was the son of the village chief and have now been arrested by the state’s police.
Rakesh Shingh Nirbhik was a 37-year-old journalist who was a writer for a Lucknow based newspaper Rashtriya Swaroop. On Friday Rakesh along with his friend Pintu Shau aged 34 was found dead with severe burn injuries inside his residence in Balrampur village which is around 160Km away from Lucknow. Mr Sahu had already died while Mr Nirbhik was hurried to the Lucknow hospital where he died after some time. The journalist in a 2.5 minute video is heard saying to the hospital officials “This is the price for reporting the truth”. Mr Nirbhi also said that he had been regularly writing on the so-called corruption by the local village Gram Pradhan and his son.
The Balaram police on Monday said they had arrested three people for the crime, three days after the incident. One of the arrested criminals is Rinku Mishra the son of the village chief. The two others arrested in relation to this case are Akram and this friend Lalit Mishra.The attackers drenched the two victims with alcohol based sanitizer before they were set on fire.
On Monday night the Balaram police chief Dev Ranjan Verma called the press and said “The accused were trying to cover up the crime by making it seem like an accident. But there were many loopholes and we understood this was a conspiracy”. According to the police chief the two major reasons for the murders were one being Mr Nirbhik’s active journalism and number two being a payment dispute between Mr Sahu and Rinku Mishra. The attackers got the victims drunk before setting them on fire. More people will be questioned and arrests will be made in the case said the police.
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