Jagendra Singh, deceased UP-based journalist, gets Press Club award for bravery in journalism

Mumbai: Uttar Pradesh-based journalist Jagendra Singh, who was killed allegedly for his exposes on illegal sand mining and other misdemeanours, was on Tuesday honoured posthumously with “RedInk Veer Patrakar Puraskar” by Mumbai Press Club in Mumbai. [caption id=“attachment_2751350” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Jagendra Singh. Image courtesy: Jagendra Singh’s Facebook page[/caption] Singh’s daughter Diksha Singh received the award on behalf of her father. Singh used to run a Facebook page, Shahjahanpur Samachar, wherein he exposed the “corrupt” practices of an Uttar Pradesh minister. One of the issues taken up was illegal sand mining. He was allegedly set on fire on 1 June last year by some local policemen and criminals for the expose. Singh had worked for Hindi language media for 15 years. The UP government has claimed that the journalist had set himself on fire. A writ petition was filed by journalist Mudit Mathur from Lucknow, which is pending before the Supreme Court. Besides Singh, 25 other journalists were awarded for their commendable work at the function. TN Ninan, Chairman and Editorial Director of Business Standard, was bestowed upon the Lifetime Achievement award while NDTV India’s senior Executive Editor Ravish Kumar got the ‘journalist of the year’ award. The others winners included Gunjan Sharma (The Week), Pallava Bagla (NDTV), Aniruddha Ghosal (Indian Express) and Meher Ali (The Wire). The Mumbai Press Club for the first time had included the ‘start-up of the year’ category. The award was won by thewire.in. Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao was the chief guest on the occasion while Union minister Piyush Goyal the guest of honour. A number of journalists and personalities from various fields attended the event.