Bihar Police Arrest Journalist Days After He Exposed Evangelical Attempts To Convert Entire Village

On 7 October, the Press Club of India and Indian Women’s Press Corps issued a statement in support of journalists operating in Vaishali and Muzaffarpur districts of Bihar.

The Press Club even named a journalist, Mithun Mishra, and accused Bihar police of imprisoning him under false charges. Mishra has been arrested for allegedly inciting people against law enforcement agencies.

In addition to these two press bodies, many high-profile social media accounts have raised concerns over the misuse of state machinery against the journalist.

Mishra has been booked under Sections 74, 76, 109, 115(2), 118(1), 121(1), 121(2), 132, 190, 191(1), 191(2), 303(2), 351(2), and 352 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

He was also handcuffed in violation of the Supreme Court’s guidelines on the use of handcuffs in multiple cases, with 'Citizens for Democracy v. State of Assam' being the latest.

Mishra reports from the ground — mainly from Muzaffarpur and nearby districts. His channel's name is Bihar_wala_news. In a short span of time, he has amassed 76,000 Facebook followers, nearly 67,000 YouTube subscribers, and 38,000 Instagram followers.

Due to his firebrand style of reporting and no-nonsense attitude in interactions, Mishra is now dubbed by many as the “Manish Kashyap of Muzaffarpur.”

Manish Kashyap is a citizen journalist from Bihar, a YouTuber, who was arrested by Tamil Nadu police for incitement. After release from jail, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but continues his earlier work.

Mishra is well known for reporting in dangerous territories. Most of his reports are from far-flung areas; in many places — including recent floods — he arrived well before the administrative arrangements were made and exposed the ineptness of the system.

Recently, he came into the limelight for exposing an evangelical conversion going on openly in the Aurai block of Muzaffarpur. In a discussion with this writer, Mishra said that when he got the news of the conversion, he was 40 kilometres (km) away but still rushed to the scene.

Mishra courageously jumped in and started questioning the organisers of the event. Mishra’s father is a priest; the knowledge gained from him turned out to be critical in establishing that the camp was indeed a conversion camp — despite changes in lexicon and strategy at the last minute.

Multiple high-profile accounts on the social platform X had shared this video, and it is alleged that the video made Mishra the target.

It is pertinent to note that in three districts — Muzaffarpur, Saran, and Balia (Uttar Pradesh) — Christian conversions are underway at a rapid pace. One elderly Christian man (converted) this writer met in Balia said Muzaffarpur is the focal point of conversion activities.

While local journalists were anticipating retribution over his conversion video, Mishra was actually hounded in a different case of highlighting the perils of flood-affected people.

On his page, there are nine videos of him going straight to flood-affected areas, talking to people whose homes were washed away, and showing how the government’s efforts have proved ineffective for them.

But for Muzaffarpur police, exposing mismanagement is equal to inciting people against the state machinery.