Lucknow: Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath demanding a CBI enquiry into the death of a TV journalist based in Uttar Pradesh who had been found dead under mysterious circumstances in Pratapgarh district.
She in the letter wrote, “The law and order has collapsed and liquor mafia from Aligarh to Pratapgarh have been found indulged in spurious liquor trade, hundreds have died, and those journalists who had been exposing them are attacked.”
She also demanded financial assistance to the victim’s family.
Just a day before his death, Sulabh Srivastava, who worked for a TV channel, wrote to the Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday saying he felt threatened following his recent reportage of liquor mafias in the district.
Seeking protection, Srivastava had said he had been informed by sources that the liquor mafia was angry with him after the publication of his report and wanted to harm him or his family.
The Pratapgarh police has said that the journalist died in a ‘motorcycle accident’.
“Srivastava was returning on his motorcycle after media coverage, at around 11 p.m. on Sunday. He fell from his motorcycle near a brick kiln. Some labourers lifted him from the road and then used his phone to call his friends.
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“He was taken to the district hospital where the doctors declared him dead,” the Pratapgarh police said in a statement.
The police also added that the initial probe revealed that Srivastava fell after his “bike collided with a handpump on the road”.
The police also added that they are probing other angles in the matter.
