
Jagendra Singh
They came in the heat of the late afternoon, two cars jammed with enforcers and police officers allied with a local dairy minister. They charged into the reporter's house and reminded him that he had been warned many times that "he should not write anything against the minister."
At least that's what the reporter, Jagendra Singh, told a police official on his deathbed,
with 60 percent of his body covered with burns after, he said, the men doused him with gasoline and set him on fire.It was payback, he said, for his many posts on social media linking Ram Murti Verma, the minister of dairy development in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, to illegal sand mining and taking possession of unoccupied land, two underground activities rampant in the state.
"They warned him that they will not leave his fingers in such a state that they would be able to write anything against the minister," said Mr. Singh's son, Rahul, in a telephone interview on Thursday.
The police in Uttar Pradesh said Thursday that they were investigating the accusations against Mr. Verma and his associates. Amitabh Thakur, a senior police official, went to check on Mr. Singh in his hospital bed in Lucknow, the state capital, before he died on Monday evening, a week after he was burned in the dusty town of Shahjahanpur on June 1.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called this week for an independent inquiry into Mr. Singh's death.
"Given the allegations of police participation, and
India's poor track record of solving crimes in connection with reporting on local corruption, the involvement of an independent authority is essential," Sumit Galhotra, a research associate for the group's Asia branch, said in a statement.
Comment: Methane is a colorless, odorless gas at room temperature and standard pressure, and as residents 'complained of a smell' prompting the sewer inspection, this tragedy could be related to inhalation of other toxic 'sewer gases'. Such as hydrogen sulfide, which does have an odor and is "heavier than air, very poisonous, corrosive, flammable, and explosive".
In India last week, three workers died after inhaling poisonous gases inside a manhole. Those working on sewer systems or living in 'low-lying areas' may be particularly susceptible to such 'heavier than air' out gassing.
Such seeps are likely to be contributing to increased manhole explosions worldwide, and to fish die offs, such as the "catastrophic" one elsewhere in Ireland recently.