- By Aashish Vashistha
- Sat, 04 Jan 2025 12:03 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
In a tragic incident, a 28-year-old journalist, who had gone missing after meeting the brother of a road contractor, was found murdered on Friday in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. The police said that the body of television journalist Mukesh Chandrakar was found in a septic tank on the property of a local road contractor in Bijapur town.
“A journalist, Mukesh Chandrakar, has been missing since January 1. The police registered a case and formed a special team to investigate. Today his body was recovered from a septic tank in the premises of contractor Suresh Chandrakar,” news agency ANI quoted IG Bastar P Sundarraj as saying.
He also stated that a post-mortem examination of the body was being done and the individuals suspected in connection with the incident are being interrogated.
Chandrakar, an independent journalist known for his reports from the Bastar region and the founder of the YouTube channel Bastar Junction, went missing on January 1.
According to the police, he went missing shortly after he received a call from a local contractor’s cousin. Chandrakar had informed a journalist in Raipur about the phone call, mentioning that the contractor’s brother wanted to meet him. The police further stated that Mukesh's phones were switched off around 12:30 am on January 1, and he failed to return home afterwards, as reported by Hindustan Times.
Chandrakar is survived by his brother, Yukesh, who, along with Chandrakar, had lost their parents at a young age. Yukesh, a fellow journalist, filed a missing person report on January 2 after waiting for his brother to return.
Reacting to Chandrakar’s death, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that the culprit behind the crime would not be spared. “The news of the murder of young and dedicated journalist Mukesh Chandrakar of Bijapur is extremely sad and heartbreaking. His demise is an irreparable loss to the world of journalism and society,” he said.
“We have given instructions to arrest the criminals as soon as possible and give them the harshest punishment,” he added.