Gunmen shot and killed Rajesh Mishra, a reporter for Hindi-language daily Dainik Jagran, while he was sitting with his brother in their building materials store in in Ghazipur, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, on Oct. 21, 2017. The assailants reportedly shot Mishra in the head before fleeing on a motorcycle. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Mishra’s brother was wounded in the abdomen in the attack.
The motive for the killing was not immediately known. Mishra also was a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an influential right-wing Hindu organisation that Agence France Press described as being “seen as the ideological fountainhead of the national ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)”.
On Dec. 4, 2017, police arrested three of six men allegedly involved in the murder. The men allegedly are members of a gang involved in illegal mining who were angered by Mishra’s reports on their activities.