Dying to be a journalist

Courage amidst the challenges of a conflict zone in Bastar

- BY SRAVANI SARKAR

THE BODY OF a 33-year-old journalist, Mukesh Chandrakar, was discovered in a septic tank near a contractor’s home in Bijapur, Bastar, on January 3. Within days, the police arrested the contractor’s brothers and then the contractor himself in the murder case. Chandrakar, who ran the popular YouTube channel Bastar Junction, had frequently reported on corruption, tribal rights and the ongoing Maoist conflict with security forces. He had recently exposed a road construction scam involving the arrested contractor.

Chandrakar was one of seven journalists who had played a pivotal role in securing the release of a captured CRPF Cobra commando, Rakeshwar Singh Manhas, on April 8, 2021. Manhas had been taken hostage after a Maoist ambush that left 22 security troops dead at Jonaguda on the border of Bijapur and Sukma districts of Chhattisgarh on April 3. Many more were wounded in the Maoist attack.

Chandrakar and his elder brother, journalist Yukesh, had ventured deep into Maoist-controlled forests in the area along with Ganesh Mishra, 39, of the local daily Pratah India and four other local journalists — K. Shankar, Ranjan Das, Chetan Kapewar and Ravi Punje. Government-appointed mediators for the release of the commando accompanied them. Mishra was one of three journalists whom the Maoists had notified about Manhas’s life in captivity. The journalists’ bold initiative and firm contacts within the dense forests led to the commando’s release after the Maoists held a “public trial” of the commando.

Like several of his peers, Chandrakar walked a fine line while reporting from the interiors of Bastar, where Maoists have mounted a decades-long insurgency against state forces. Any misstep could result in life-threatening consequences for the local journalists.