Come April 11, Jharkhand-based independent journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh will complete 1000 days behind bars, who was booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2022.
In an open letter addressed to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjeev Khanna, activists, lawyers, and journalists appealed for Kumar’s immediate release, which has not been granted bail even once since his incarceration.
“Kumar is in jail for his links with the Communist Party of India, which is bogus. He has been falsely implicated and declared arrested in another four UAPA cases. Slapping multiple cases against Rupesh Kumar Singh shows the clear intention of Indian state to ensure that he remains in jail for a long time by turning the very process into punishment,” the letter read.
The letter said that Kumar, who has written for various media outlets, including The Wire, Newsclick, and Janchowk, exposed human rights violations, and his arrest was purely because he raised questions against the governments, both central and state levels.
“Rupesh Kumar Singh 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,” the letter read.
“Initially, he was targeted by the Jharkhand Government, ruled by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) with Hemant Soren at the helm, and later the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and other agencies got involved in his case,” the letter further read.
In 2021, his name featured among the 40 journalists whose phone numbers were tapped by Pegasus hacking software. This software is made by an Israeli company that claims to sell it only to governments. “Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh, the victim of such an 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,” the letter read.
Who is Rupesh Kumar Singh?
Rupesh Kumar Singh is a freelance Hindi journalist based in Jharkhand. He has reported on several issues, mainly affecting the tribal community in the state. In 2017, Singh reported about a fake encounter of a tribal man named Motilal Baske by the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action or Cobra, a special unit under the Central Reserve Police Force. When Singh investigated the murder, he found out that Baske, as claimed by the CRPF, was not a Maoist guerrilla, but a porter who physically ferried pilgrims to the Parasnath Hills.
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