| Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontieres) said today it was deeply shocked by the attempted murder late yesterday in Mumbai of Sajid Rashid, the editor of the Hindi-language edition of the daily Mahanagar. Rashid was stabbed twice in the back. The organisation called on the Maharashtra state authorities to take all necessary measures to identify and arrest those responsible for the attack and to protect the staff of Mahanagar, which was already the target of violence two months ago. If it is confirmed that Rashid was targeted because he had defended free expression, the attack poses a disturbing threat to all independent news media in Mumbai, Reporters Without Borders added. Rashid was attacked by two men who approached him in the evening not far from the newspaper's offices. Nikhil Wagle, the editor of Mahanagar's Maratha-language edition, said one of the men asked Rashid if he was "the one who insulted the Koran" and the other then stabbed him. Rashid, also vice-president of the movement Muslims for Secular Democracy, wrote about the issue of free expression in Islam in June, causing anger in Muslim fundamentalist circles in Mumbai, and since then he has been receiving anonymous threats. He filed a complaint but the police did not investigate. It was only after yesterday's attack that the police decided to give him protection. |