A 35 year old journalist who was working for a Gwalior-based daily died after a group of persons shot him . They initially attacked him with sticks in Madhya Pradesh’s Niwari district as per police.
The incident took place near Putri Khera village in Sendri police station .
His brother managed to escape to the village to get help from locals, police said.
After that the victim’s family rushed the journalist to a hospital in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh where he succumbed to his injuries, police said.
“A murder case has been registered against all the seven accused. All the accused were absconding”, local sub-divisional officer of police Balram Singh Parihar said.
He initially heard saying in the video clip that he feared for his life and regretted that police was not accepting his FIR against the accused.
“I have been pleading to Niwari police to give me protection for the last two months. Police is not accepting my FIR. If something happens to me or my family, then the accused should be held responsible”, he was heard saying in the video clip.
Superintendent of Police Vahni Singh told reporters that a land dispute was resolved by revenue and police officials on July 14. “It was found the land claimed by Sunil Tiwari was not his, and he had accepted it,” she said. Whereas, Awadesh Tiwari had a criminal background and had more than 10 cases against him.
Days before the incident, Sunil in a video shared on the social media claimed he had received death threats from Awadesh and others for a year. “They are threatening to kill me and my family, and have demanded a Rs. 5 lakh ransom. These are people with political connections,” he purportedly said in the video, claiming he informed of the threats to the Superintendent of the Police and the Collector as well.
“I am a simple journalist who revealed some of their irregularities,” he had said. “I got two of their licences cancelled which they got in a fake manner.”
