Incident
Journalist Abducted and Killed in Central India
Cause of death
Other non-natural
Details
Sandeep Kothari was abducted by a group of men who beat him to death and then burned his body and left it near a railway track in Katangi town, police Superintendent Neeraj Soni said.
The two arrested men are being questioned and police are searching for a third man involved in the attack, he said.
Kothari's family said the journalist was killed for reporting about illegal mining in the Balaghat district.
They said Kothari had filed a court case against the owners of some mining companies to stop sand mining. His brother, Neeraj, said Kothari had been under pressure from the mining companies to withdraw the case.
Soni denied that Kothari had died because of his reporting about illegal mining and said he was killed by business rivals.
Police in Balaghat appointed a panel to investigate the death and the family's claims.
Kothari's death comes less than two weeks after another journalist, Jagendra Singh, was set on fire and killed in neighboring Uttar Pradesh state.
Before he succumbed to his burns, Singh implicated Uttar Pradesh's dairy minister, Ram Murti Verma, and two police officers in the June 1 attack.
