Killings – Journalists

At around 9 am on Monday, Sandeep Sharma, a 35-year-old journalist investigating illegal sand mining in Madhya Pradesh, was run over by a dumper truck in Bhind. The police insist it was an accident, but some allege that he was murdered for his work. In fact, Sharma had asked for police protection, saying his life was in danger after conducting a “sting operation” on Sub Divisional Police Officer Indra Veer Singh Bhadouria in 2017.

Sharma had secretly filmed Bhadouria purportedly accepting a bribe of Rs 12,500 to let a truck transport illegally mined sand from the National Chambal Sanctuary. The police officer was transferred out of Bhind after Sharma’s TV news channel, News World, aired the video late in October.

Soon after, Sharma wrote to senior police officials, saying he and his colleague Vikas Purohit, who had helped him conduct the sting, feared for their lives and demanded protection. The letter, stamped by the Bhind superintendent of police’s office on November 3, mentioned that copies of it had been sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Bhadouria, the letter claimed, “has links with local criminals and strongmen and could implicate us in false cases or even have us murdered and make it appear like an accident”.