One Week Into 2025 And India Already Records First Journalist Death

As we step into a New Year, heartbreaking news knocked the Indian media fraternity as a young scribe was found murdered in the Bijapur locality of Chhattisgarh during the first week of 2025. The global casualty of media workers reached 179 in 2024 across 25 countries. India maintained the number of journo-murders within four which is one more than the casualty reported in 2023. All the media victims reported last year from the central Indian region, where  Uttar Pradesh witnessed the killing of two journalists (Ashutosh Srivastava and Dilip Saini), followed by Bihar (Shivshankar Jha) and Madhya Pradesh (Salman Ali Khan). The first journo-murder this year continues the same trend in the South Asian nation.

Mukesh Chandrakar (30), an independent scribe, went missing on 1 January and two days later his body was recovered from a newly constructed septic tank belonging to an influential contractor based in the Chattanpara area.  A brave media reporter, who had extensively covered misappropriation of funds in various government projects in his locality. Initially, Mukesh worked in several media outlets including a satellite news channel and faced wrath from the ultra-left insurgents who remained active in the Bastar district. Lately, he ran a YouTube channel (named Bastar Junction), enjoyed millions of views, and made a mark in investigative journalism while establishing himself as a strong voice for the deprived section of society.

Meanwhile, the journalist organisations on the ground have demonstrated their anger over the killing and demand stern action against the culprits. National media bodies like the Editors Guild of India, and the Indian Journalist Union along with several press clubs of different cities and global media watchdogs namely Paris-based Reporters sans/without Borders, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign etc raised their voices for justice to the victim family. The State government in Raipur constituted a special investigation team and arrested four individuals namely Suresh Chandrakar  (prime accused), Ritesh Chandrakar, Mahendra Ramteke and Dinesh Chandrakar suspecting their roles in the brutal murder.

“It’s unfortunate that a young media person is seemingly targeted for his string reporting on powerful corrupt people.  Incidentally, Mukesh Chandrakar becomes the first journalist to be killed this year across the world. We demand a fair probe to identify the culprits behind his killing and subsequent punishment under the law,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC, adding that Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai should take a personal interest in resolving the case as early as possible.

As 2024 bids farewell, the global media society took time to express grief over the untimely demise of journalists during the eventful year that recorded a significant increase in the number. The year witnessed almost three-quarters of the victims murdered in conflict zones. December was a particularly dramatic month with 20 more media victims, where the hike of journalist-murder incidents in 2024 compared with 2023 (140 media casualties) under the same criteria was around 28%, asserted the PEC’s annual report. Mentionable is that, unlike other international organizations, the PEC includes all journalists killed, whether or not their deaths were related to their professional activity as it’s very difficult to prove instantly in its statistics.

Conflicts in the Middle East are responsible for more than half of the victims. They have claimed the lives of 91 journalists: at least 80 in the Gaza Strip, 6 in Lebanon, 4 in Syria and 1 in the West Bank. In total, the hostilities in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have killed at least 161 media workers, an unprecedented toll for a conflict in such a short space of time. In 2024, the war in Ukraine resulted in the deaths of 19 Ukrainian journalists (most of whom had joined the army) plus one foreigner (Ryan Evans of Reuters in Kramatorsk). To this must be added the death in custody in Russia on 10 October of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Rochtchina, making a total of 21 victims.

Outside the Middle East and Ukraine, Pakistan had the highest number of journalists killed, 12 since 1 January, a clear deterioration. Russia has 7 journalists killed (including three in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia and one in Kursk). In Bangladesh, unrest in July left 7 journalists dead. The situation remains very dangerous in Mexico, where 7 journalists have been killed. Hostilities in Sudan caused the death of 6 journalists. In Colombia, 4 media workers were killed, whereas 4 killed in India, 3 in Iraq and 3 in Myanmar (Burma). Two people were killed in Somalia, two in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and two in Haiti. Cambodia, Chad, Ecuador, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Nepal and the Philippines, followed with one fatality in each country.

India’s immediate neighbour  Pakistan, which recorded 3 journo-murders in 2023,  lost 12 media workers to assailants in the last year namely Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar, Tahira Nosheen Rana, Muhammad Siddiq Mengel, Mehar Ashfaq Siyal, Kamran Dawar, Nasrullah Gadani, Khalil Jibran, Hasan Zaib, Muhammad Bachal Ghunio, Nisar Lehri, Janan Hussain and Malik Zafar Iqbal. Another neighbour Bangladesh, which lost only 2 journalists to assailants in 2023, witnessed the murder of Hasan Mehedi, Shakil Hossain, Abu Taher Md Turab, Tahir Zaman Priyo, Pradip Kumar Bhowmik, Tanjil Jahan Islam Tamim and Swapan Kumar Bhadra in the recent socio-political uprising. Similarly, Nepal recorded the killing of Suresh Bhul and Myanmar’s military rulers perpetrated the untimely deaths of Ko Myat Thu Tun, Htet Myat Thu and Win Htut Oo last year.

In ten years, the PEC has counted 1,159 victims, an average of 2.25 per week. Over the last five years, the most dangerous countries have been Gaza/West Bank (166), Ukraine (59), Mexico (55), Pakistan (36) and India (32). By continent in 2024, the Middle East had the highest number of victims (92: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Iraq), ahead of Asia (31). Europe follows (28: Ukraine and Russia), ahead of Latin America (17) and Africa (11). In addition to the Middle East, there has been a deterioration in Asia from one year to the next (31 deaths compared with 12). On the positive side, there were fewer victims in Latin America in 2024 than in 2023 (16 compared with 20).

Speaking to this writer from Geneva, Lempen reiterated that the PEC condemned all these crimes, committed in violation of international laws and national legislations. Independent investigations are essential to clarify the circumstances and prosecute those responsible for combatting impunity. The heavy death toll (heaviest since the beginning of the century), reinforces the need for an international instrument that clarifies the conditions for the protection of the profession of journalism in conflict zones. He asserted that the PEC will continue its mission to make the global leadership aware of the media's safety and security without a pause.