A journalist was shot dead in Phephna area of Ballia district (260 kilometres from the state capital, Lucknow) in Uttar Pradesh on Monday night. The victim has been identified as Ratan Singh (45), a journalist working with a Hindi news channel.
Based on a complaint lodged by the father of the journalist against 10 people, six accused - Sushil Singh, Dinesh Singh, Arvind Singh, Suneel Singh, Vir Bahadur Singh and Vinay Singh have been arrested so far, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Sanjay Yadav has said.
According to the police, Ratan Singh was involved in a property dispute with Dinesh Singh. The police said that Ratan Singh was shot at the village head's house. They added that the journalist lived in a house in the urban part of the district and his family had been involved in a property dispute with the accused over a house in his village for the last few years.
"Ratan had a dispute over property with his neighbour. On Monday evening, there was a fight between the two sides, and the neighbour shot at him. Accused Dinesh Singh is also Ratan Singh's parcener," Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar told news agency PTI.
However, the journalist’s family has rejected the police’s version that it was a property dispute. Vinod Singh, Ratan Singh's father claimed that the police are lying and trying to cover up the case. He went on to claim that the village head, Jhabar Singh, hatched a conspiracy to kill his son.
"We received information in the evening at around 5:30 pm that village head Jhabar Singh's brother Sonu had a fight with my son. My son went to his house in the evening and they killed him there. They have also killed my elder son three years ago," Vinod Singh told ANI.
This is the second incident in a month where a journalist was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh. On July 22, a journalist from Ghaziabad, Vikram Joshi, was shot dead by miscreants. His death came days after he had filed a complaint that a few men were harassing his niece.