On 11 April 2025, on the 1000th days of the incarceration of Jharkhand based Freelance Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, more than a hundred journalists, academics, social workers, students and other citizens sent an open letter to the Chief Justice of India seeking his release.
Rupesh Kumar Singh’s wife and also a writer, Ipsa Shatakshi, told FSC that Rupesh had made a mark as a journalist covering issues affecting adivasis in Jharkhand, including the impact of mining on the environment, the displacement of adivasis due to infrastructure projects and encounter deaths in the area.
As she said, in an interview, “He never let his pen become a slave to power. That’s why he’s behind bars today.”
Singh, who was also targeted by the Pegasus spyware, was arrested on July 17, 2022, after a non-hour raid on his residence. His electronic devices were seized and police charged him in a UAPA case involving a number of persons accused of Maoist activities. He was embroiled in three other cases and managed to secure bail in two cases.
On November 18, 2022, the Jharkhand High Court rejected his bail in one case and, on January 27, 2025, an appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court with a terse one-line order :”We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order.”
Local journalists attest to the work that Singh had done right upto his arrest, including articles and reports on rape and murder and pollution from a factory.
See links to some of his stories here, here and here.
His lawyer Shyam Kumar Sinha said the allegations against him were baseless and even the evidence police had produced was clearly manipulated electronically. He was accused of being in touch with members of the banned Maoist organisation but though he did explain to police that he used to met scores of people in the course of his journalistic work he was still targeted and falsely charged with being a Maoist.
In 2019, Rupesh Kumar was detained for six months by police in Gaya district in Bihar, but he managed to get bail as no charge-sheet was filed within the stipulated 180 days. The trial is yet to begin in this case.
Despite the thousand day incarceration, Rupesh Kumar Singh’s spirit continue to remain high. His wife Ipsa said that he recited a poem expressing his determination to continue to tell the truth in a phone call to her this morning:
Signatories to the statement to the CJI believe “Rupesh’s work to expose human rights violations as well as corporate induced destruction of lives and environment along with his commitment to uncovering the truth on various issues concerning the people, is the main reason for targeting by the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist BJP-RSS government.”
Open Letter to Chief Justice of India
On 11 April 2025, Jharkhand based Freelance Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh completes 1000 days of wrongful incarceration. Until now, he has not been granted bail. Rupesh Kumar Singh has been in jail since 17 July 2022 under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. After his arrest, he was falsely implicated and declared arrested in another 4 UAPA cases pertaining to bogus Maoist cases ; slapping multiple cases against Rupesh Kumar Singh shows the clear intention of Indian state to ensure that he remains in jail for very long time by turning the very process into punishment.
Rupesh Kumar has been doing ground-level reporting for many media outlets to expose the human rights violations such as rape, illegal arrests and extrajudicial killings in Jharkhand other parts of central India. Prior to his arrest, he was also reporting about how the factory’s polluted waste affected the lives of ordinary people and created various health problems.
We believe that, as a journalist, Rupesh’s work to expose human rights violations as well as corporate induced destruction of lives and environment along with his commitment to uncovering the truth on various issues concerning the people, is the main reason for targeting by the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist BJP-RSS government. Initially, he was targeted by the Jharkhand Government, ruled by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM) with Hemant Soren at the helm, and later the NIA and other agencies got involved in his case. The journalist Rupesh Kumar’s case compelled us to think that it is not only the Hindutva-fascist BJP that is threatening press freedom and stifling dissent, but other ruling political parties of various states are also on the same page when a challenge to their anti-people policies find space in voice of a pro-people journalist. In India, targeting journalists is very common when they expose corruption and report on state atrocities, state failure to address common issues of people and people’s movements. For that purpose, the Indian state also uses Zionist technology like Pegasus malware to snoop and surveil as well as plant incriminating material in the devices of a person targeted. Rupesh Kumar is also targeted by this same malware. Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh the victim of such attack internationally criticised, speaks volumes to the government’s desperation to silence his pro-people reporting as it would expose the State-Corporate nexus that destroys people’s lives and livelihood.
Despite being a petitioner in Supreme court in the case against use of Pegasus spyware, Bail application of Rupesh Kumar Singh was rejected on January 27. This is very serious concern for all of us. On the one hand, the Supreme Courts and high courts give various judgments and say that ‘Bail is Rule and Jail is Exception’, but we see that when cases, especially of activists and pro-people journalists come before the courts, they forget this basic principle of jurisprudence and deal with them harshly either by denying bail or by endless adjournments, leading to the person languishing in jail without reason, without any trial.
We appeal to all the democratic and progressive organisations, journalists, advocates, social activists, and Human Rights Defenders to sign this open letter and stand in solidarity with journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh by demanding his immediate and unconditional release from the illegal detention.
(See here for letter ):
The continued repression of journalists has had a chilling effect on the media, especially at a time when the Union government has launched a major operation against “left wing extremism” which has endangered the lives of scores of Adivasis in districts of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand, and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.
In a separate statement issued on April 4, 2025, group of 54 organisations and concerned citizens from across the country had appealed to both sides to announce a ceasefire and stop the use of violence.
