It’s amazing that a once- ‘disturbed’ region that lost over 30 editors/reporters /correspondents to assailants in three decades continues to maintain a no-journo murder index for nearly eight years now. The trouble-torn region of India, which witnessed the last sensational killing of media professionals in 2017, readies to bid adieu another year with no such unfortunate incidents. The north-eastern region continues to sustain the trend where the country in general loses five to ten journalists every year. As the year 2025 approaches the end, India as a billion-plus population nation recorded the murder of seven journalists till the third week of December.
The region, comprising over 60 million people, last witnessed the assassination of two journalists in Tripura during 2017. The same tiny state, bordering Bangladesh, reported the assassination of three media persons (Sujit Bhattacharya, Ranjit Chowdhury and Balaram Ghosh) in 2013. They were killed together inside a Bengali newspaper office in Agartala. In the previous year, Assam and Manipur witnessed the murder of journalists (as Raihanul Nayum and Dwijamani ‘Nanao’ Singh fell prey to perpetrators) for the last time. Assam has witnessed the homicide of over 25 media workers since 1987. The culminating year has already emerged as a deadliest year for journalists since the beginning of the century after 2024, and according to the Geneva-based global media safety and rights body Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) no less than 163 media professionals were killed in 31 countries till date this year, where 2024 witnessed 179 journo-casualties around the world. By region, the Middle East leads with 87 deaths, ahead of Latin America with 25, Asia with 22, Africa with 15, Europe with 10 and the United States with 2, stated PEC president Blaise Lempen.
Two-thirds of the victims recorded in 2025 were killed in an area of armed conflict and among the countries most affected, he deplored the death of 15 media workers in Yemen, including 13 in an Israeli attack. The PEC counted this year’s seven media victims from India as Mukesh Chandrakar (stringer to NDTV from Bastar, Chhattisgarh), Raghavendra Vajpayee (Dainik Jagran from Imalia Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh), Sahadev Dey (Republic Andaman, from Diglipur, Andaman islands), Dharmendra Singh Chauhan (Fast News India, Gurugram, Haryana), Naresh Kumar (Times Odia, Bhubaneswar, Odisha), Rajeev Pratap Singh (Delhi Uttarakhand Live, Joshiyara, Uttarakhand), and Pankaj Mishra (freelance journalist, Dehradun, Uttarakhand) till date. India’s immediate neighbour Bangladesh, which is still burning with political disturbances, reported the murder of Assaduzzaman Tuhin (Dainik Pratidiner Kagoj, Gazipur), Bibhuranjan Sarkar (Ajker Patrika, Munshiganj), Wahed-uz-Zaman Bulu (Dainik Ajker Kagoj, Dhaka) and Khandahar Shah Alam (Dainik Matrijagat, Dhaka) in 2025. Another neighbour, Nepal lost one journalist (Suresh Rajak, Avenues TV, Kathmandu) to a mass uprising. Myanmar, now facing a civil war, lost three scribes last year, but evaded any media casualty this year.
Bhutan, as usual, maintains no-journo victim once again. The region lost over 20 media workers to Covid-19 during the pandemic, in contrast to the national count of 300 media casualties. Besides three north-eastern scribes, who died while working in the national capital, others succumbed to the virus infection related ailments while performing their duty as corona warriors in home places. Assam witnessed the highest number of corona-casualties in the region, while Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, a n d Sikkim evaded any journo-death because of the corona infection. Even though the Union government in New Delhi and some State authorities offered compensation to the families of corona-victims among journalists, no north-eastern governments have come forward with such schemes. The Odisha government paid Rs 15 lakh to each family which lost a working journalist due to the corona infection.
Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Punjab governments compensated such victim families with Rs 10 lakh each. Both Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh authorities paid Rs 5 lakh, followed by Bihar (Rs 4 lakh) and Telangana (Rs 2 lakh) to the king of journalists who died due to corona infection and complications. The Assam government initially announced that it would include the corona-media victims in the list of Rs 50 lakh life insurance scheme beneficiaries along with the other front-line warriors, but it maintained stoic silence over the commitment to compensate affected journo -families. Other north-eastern States followed the suit paying no attention to the matter. Is anybody listening?
(THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE PERSONAL TO THE AUTHOR. THE WRITER IS A GUWAHATIBASED SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE STATESMAN)