Documentary on Gauri Lankesh adjudged best human rights film
Bengaluru (PTI) "Gauri," a documentary based on late journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, directed by her sister and award-winning director Kavitha Lankesh, has won the 'Best Human Rights' film at the Toronto Women's Film Festival 2022.
The film has been selected also for the South Asian Film festival of Montreal and is in consideration at Doc New York, International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, Sundance Film Festival, and other festivals across the world.
Kavitha Lankesh, in a statement, said the documentary exposes the physical and verbal threats journalists face every day in India.
There were over 200 reported attacks on journalists in India in the last five years, out of which over 30 of them were murder in the last decade, she said. The attacks range in severity but the intention behind them matter, she said.
India's number in the global press freedom index is 150 out of 180, she further said and added that attacks on dissenters and journalists are unfortunately not new nor limited to India, but it is the intensity in which the attacks have taken place in the last decade is something to be concerned about.
Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on the night of September 5, 2017, from close range near her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru.
According to the statement, the documentary film Gauri has been commissioned by Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam.
Free Press Unlimited mission stems from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, it said.
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Man killed in IED blast in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur
Bijapur (PTI): A 20-year-old man was killed after a pressure Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by Naxalites went off in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, police said on Monday.
The incident occurred on Sunday when the victim, Aayta Kuhrami, a resident of Kasturipad village under Usoor police station area, had gone to a nearby forest, a police official said.
He inadvertently came in contact with the pressure IED, which exploded, causing injuries to his legs. The man succumbed to his injuries while being shifted to the hospital, the official said.
Security personnel have launched a search in the area to check if more IEDs were planted there, he said.
The official appealed to villagers to exercise extreme caution while going into forests and remote areas and asked them to immediately report any suspicious objects, activities, or materials to the nearest police station or security camp.
Maoists often plant IEDs on dirt tracks to target security personnel who use such routes during anti-Naxal operations inside forests. Civilians have also fallen prey to such traps laid by ultras in the Bastar region comprising seven districts, including Bijapur, police said.
On January 5, a 15-year-old boy was injured when a pressure IED planted by Naxalites went off in the district.
As many as 46 persons lost their lives in Maoist violence, including pressure IED blasts, in the Bastar region last year.
