Poora Sach
November 21, 2002, in Sirsa, India

Chaterpatti, editor of the Hindi-language newspaper Poora Sach, died in a New Delhi hospital of injuries sustained in an assassination attempt made a month earlier.

On October 24, a gunman fired several shots at Chaterpatti, a journalist based in Sirsa, a town in the northern state of Haryana. Chaterpatti was taken to an area hospital but was later transferred to the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.

Police arrested three suspects, including the alleged gunman and a leader of the Sirsa-based religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Officials said that Dera Sacha Sauda members are believed to have ordered Chaterpatti's murder in reprisal for the journalist's reporting on sexual abuse and other crimes allegedly committed at the group's compound in Sirsa.

A delegation of journalists, including the president of the regional journalists' group Haryana Patrakar Sangh and representatives of India's National Union of Journalists, met with the director general of police in Haryana on the day of Chatterpatti's death, November 21, to press authorities to bring the journalist's killers to justice. The delegation also complained that several journalists in the area have received death threats for reporting on the activities of Dera Sacha Sauda.

Medium:Print
Job:Editor
Beats Covered:Crime
Gender:Male
Local or Foreign:Local
Freelance:No
Type of Death:Murder
Suspected Source of Fire:Political Group
Impunity:Yes
Taken Captive:No
Tortured:No
Threatened:No

 

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