According to RSF info, on 9 April 2026, the 39-year-old reporter was moved to Bhagalpur Central Prison, more than 350 km from his home town, dramatically restricting sees from his other half and their 8-year-old kid. This marks his 5th jail transfer because 2022, and his health has actually weakened substantially over the previous 4 years since of the conditions of his detention.
Rupesh Kumar Singh has actually been sustaining painful legal persecution for 4 years since he exposed the reality through his journalism. Implicating a reporter of terrorism without proof, stacking case upon case versus him, moving him to a jail numerous kilometers from his household all serve to discourage him and others from examining the destruction commercial contamination causes on the poorest neighborhoods. RSF condemns this vicious and terrible legal harassment and requires the instant and genuine release of Rupesh Kumar Singh, together with the straight-out termination of all 5 cases versus him. We likewise gets in touch with Indian authorities to end the punitive transfers that keep him far from his other half and 8-year-old boy, and to guarantee he gets the healthcare his condition needs.
Anne Bocandé
RSF Editorial Director
Quickly before his 2022 arrest, Rupesh Kumar Singh had actually released reports– significantly in the news websiteJanchowkalong with on his X account– on the dreadful health effects of commercial contamination in Giridih district, in southern Jharkhand. Amongst those he spoke with was a girl struggling with a facial growth, whose case highlighted the rise in severe diseases connected to commercial contamination amongst the location’s most susceptible locals.
His other half, Ipsa Shatakshi, has actually regularly preserved that the legal harassment of her spouse was increased in the wake of these examinations. In 2021,discoveries that specific Indian reporters were targeted by the spyware Pegasus showed that Singh’s contact numberappeared on a dripped list of possible monitoring targets along with lots of other Indian reporters, signalling that he was under analysis even before his arrest.
Human rights protectors and fellow reporters argue the charges were caused incorrect premises. In the 2022 case, Singh’s nameapparently did not even appear in the initial authorities grievance and was included just later. The several cases submitted versus him assist guarantee he stays in detention: despite the fact that he was effectively approved bail in 2 of the 5 cases, the Supreme Court of India declined his bail application in a 3rd case in January 2025. The case is now dealt with by India’s National Investigation Agency, and no bail application has actually yet been submitted.
Singh’s case is among a number of highlighted in a current RSFreport on the growing usage of nationwide security legislation as a weapon versus reporters worldwide. Released in July 2026, the report information how charges of terrorism, espionage and “anti-state” activity are significantly utilized to silence news specialists covering delicate topics, from ecological damage to human rights abuses.