Another day, another journalist has been brutally killed in the exercise of just performing his duty. It is a matter of great concern, how the journalists in India are continuing to sacrifice their lives in just trying to do their jobs.
A senior television journalist, Anuj Chaudhary, was shot at his residence in Ghaziabad on Sunday evening by unidentified gunmen. He had been working with the news channel Sahara Samay and was also the president of local television journalists body.
According to The Hindu, two bike-borne assailants stopped their motorbike, and the pillion rider took out and opened fire at the journalist.
India is among the deadliest countries for journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which lists 41 instances over the past two and half decades. It is a matter of shame for the country. The media is considered as the fourth pillar of a democracy, and in a country, like India, the journalists are being brutally killed in broad daylight. Are we then even a democracy if journalists keep losing their lives for bringing important issues to the fore?
Democracy not only means the Right to Vote, rather a country is termed democratic when each and every citizen have the right to assert their opinion regarding any issues or have the right to question authority. Democracy means freedom of the press, where journalists don’t lose their lives for standing up for the truth.
This incident has yet again reignited debates about the need for freedom of speech and to let journalists keep a close eye on those in power and be the voice of the voiceless.
It’s high time that each and every citizen of the country should stand up for the journalists of the country and should fight against forces curbing the freedom of the press in India. As Arundhati Roy had once said, “There’s really no such things as the voiceless. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. You can kill the journalist, but you cannot kill the truth.”