“I Went to Jail for a Report, But Came Back with the Screams of Hundreds of Innocent People”

Shivkumar Kushwaha, a journalist from Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh was arrested and sent to jail for raising the issue of corruption.

🔏 Shivkumar Kushwaha

I do local reporting in Kushinagar district. But last night I was made a criminal. My only fault was that I wrote a post against the plight of Badhara village, corruption and insensitivity of public representatives. Where a village head is calling the people of the lower class of the village gutter worm.

Is this democracy? Or the undeclared rule of a dictatorship? Without notice, the police picked me up from my house in the middle of the night.

Sections registered against me – 170, 135, 126 NBS – Which had no real basis, nor any investigation. Cases were registered against me under the IT Act. They had only one purpose – to scare, silence, teach a lesson.

Four days – in a jail, but they became the biggest university of my life.

Deoria Jail, Barrack No-18. 72 prisoners – imprisoned for different crimes, but 90% had the same story: “We did not do anything sir. We were framed.” Some were imprisoned in false cases at the behest of an MLA, some at the behest of an MP.

The police officer demanded Rs 50,000 from someone – on not paying, he was booked for ‘breach of peace’. Some youths had dared to do love marriage – the shackles of casteism turned out to be harsher than the prison walls. And there were some people whose only crime was that they were poor and did not have the means to fight a case.

आज हाटा तहसील में सम्पूर्ण समाधान दिवस के दिन मैं SDM साहब को पत्र देने गया था तो उन्होंने मेरे ऊपर FIR का आदेश दिया है, पीड़ित पर ही FIR #पत्रकारकीआवाज़ #SDMHata #TehsilHata #PressFreedom #लोकतंत्र_पर_हमला #InquilabZindabad #KushinagarKiAwaaz pic.twitter.com/pAtFXktrWL

— Shiv Kumar kushwaha (@ShivK71767) May 3, 2025

Some Muslims were framed in false charges. That was not a prison – it was a rotten, stinking system. Where humanity was dying.

While in prison, I read a thick book named “Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh” from the prison library and felt a storm rising within me.

Gandhi used to say – “If you have to go to jail on the path of truth, then understand that you are on the right path.”

I felt that I am not alone – rather I am a part of that long queue, which is facing oppression while demanding justice in this country.

What happened to me in jail is not a story – it is proof. When I got bail yesterday evening, those prisoners – who had started calling me brother – started crying.

Many held my hand and said: “Brother, go to our homes and tell them that we are innocent. No one is listening to us.” They handed over their addresses and numbers on slips of paper to me – as if they were putting their last hope in my hands.

The question is not just mine now. The question is about that democracy, which has remained only in name.

If a youth like me is made a criminal for asking a question, If the police arrests and throws me in jail for raising the voice of the poor,

If the SDM also keeps the file pending for weeks under pressure from MPs and MLAs for asking for bail, And if a person's life becomes hell until he proves his innocence...Then this is not democracy, it is a dirty conspiracy. 

Now I am out - but those 72 prisoners are in my breath now. Now my camera, my pen and my voice Will not just do reporting - Now it is a mission.

Mission - to get the innocent out of jail.

Mission - to put the system in the dock.

Mission - to expose that rotten system which considers the poor as guilty.

I appeal - to every human rights activist, 

Every social organization,

Every honest journalist,

Every sensitive citizen:

Rise up. Be the voice of those who are yearning for their innocence. Those who are behind bars, but not guilty. Those who have been forgotten by society, but humanity has to remember them. Because if you remain silent today, then tomorrow these bars can open for your loved ones too. (Shivkumar Kushwaha, a journalist from Uttar Pradesh, is the founder of 'Kushinagar Ki Awaaz'. This article translated into English is taken from his Facebook page.)