Freelance journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh was arrested in 2022 on allegations of involvement with outlawed Maoist insurgents. As of late 2024, Singh was held in northeast Bihar state’s Shahid Jubba Sahni Central Jail and trials had begun in two out of five cases.
Over the past decade, India has seen an uptick in the incarceration of journalists under security laws, most notably the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which designates the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as a terrorist organization and allows for detention without charge for up to 180 days. In 2009, the government relaunched a counterinsurgency but CPI (Maoist) rebels remain active in some areas, including Singh’s home state of Jharkhand.
Singh’s wife Ipsa Shatakshi told CPJ that she believed authorities targeted Singh in retaliation for his reporting on issues affecting tribal communities, including forced displacement, state militarization, environmental degradation, and alleged extrajudicial killings.
On July 17, 2022, police arrested Singh during a nine-hour raid on his home in which they seized his cell phones, laptops, hard drive, and personal items, Shatakshi said.
The arrest was authorized by a five-month-old warrant that cited a 2021 case filed in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district which accused multiple individuals and a person identified as “Rupesh” of Maoist activities in violation of the UAPA and other laws, according to a copy of the police report, reviewed by CPJ.
Singh knew nothing about the case until the arresting officers told the journalist that his voice had featured in a hard drive seized from Maoist rebels, Shatakshi said. The trial for this case began in February 2023, the journalist’s lawyer Shayam Kumar Sinha told CPJ.
In August 2022, Singh received warrants to appear for questioning over two additional cases that he had not previously been aware of, Shatakshi said.
The first case, filed on April 26, 2022, in Rohtas, Bihar, and handled by the counterterrorism National Investigation Agency, alleged that CPI (Maoist) leaders, including Singh, collected dues and recruited cadres on April 12, in violation of the UAPA and other laws, and conspired to wage war against the government. The trial for this case opened in February 2024, Sinha said.
The second case is based on a June 30, 2022, report against persons alleged to have carried out Maoist operations against the state, according to Shatakshi and a copy of the police report, filed in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district and reviewed by CPJ. The report did not mention Singh but authorities said his name came up while investigating other suspects, those sources said.
At the time, Singh was more than 800 miles southwest in Maharashtra state, according to Shatakshi, the journalist’s travel documents, reviewed by CPJ, a video of the event he attended there the following day, and a May 5 email. In the email to friends, which CPJ reviewed, Singh discussed the April 13 Maoist arrests and said he feared arrest, even though he had never been to Rohtas, but only reported from neighboring Kaimur district on a protest against a planned tiger reserve.
In 2019, police in Bihar’s Gaya district detained Singh for six months on allegations of links with banned Maoist groups, before freeing him on bail as they had not filed a charge sheet within the legally-required 180 days. A chargesheet was filed five days after Singh’s release, and Singh is waiting for the trial to begin, Sinha said.
Singh was also accused of having Maoist links in a fifth case, filed in 2018 by the Jharkhand police in Chaibasa municipality. A charge sheet has not been filed, according to Shatakshi, who has consistently said that the case is baseless and aimed at unjustly keeping her husband behind bars.
NIA spokesperson Jaya Roy referred CPJ’s request for comment to Public Relations Officer Amit Kumar who did not respond to CPJ’s calls and messages, as of late 2024. Nor did CPJ receive any replies to its emails requesting comment from the following police superintendents: Mukesh Kumar Lunayat in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district, Manoj Swargiary in Bokaro district, and Ashutosh Shekhar in Jharkhand’s Chaibasa municipality.