Jagendra Singh lay on a hospital stretcher in excruciating pain. With skin peeled off from his face and body, burnt wounds of his flesh visible, the journalist from India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), gave a video testimonial on 1 June 2015.
“They jumped over the wall and came inside – five to six policemen – everyone was armed with pistols; they beat me up, poured petrol on me and set me alight,” he said, before naming the men responsible for burning him alive. Of them were Prakash Rai, a police inspector and Ram Murti Singh Verma, a state minister for dairy development.
It was his dying declaration – unable to bear the pain, Jagendra breathed his last.
Jagendra Singh’s murder is very similar to that of Jamal Khashoggi’s killing. Both of them, journalists critical of the administration, had been murdered in cold blood. Just as Saudi Arabia’s security forces killed Jamal Khashoggi, India’s state police killed Jagendra Singh.
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