Media unions, including the IFJ, IJU, and NUJ-I, have raised urgent concerns following at least four separate, violent attacks on journalists in Assam and Maharashtra in July 2025, underscoring the severe security crisis facing media workers. In Pune, Maharashtra, female editor Sneha Barwe was violently assaulted with a wooden rod and hospitalized while reporting on illegal construction; her assailant remains unarrested. Concurrently, two journalists in Assam were attacked while covering illegal mining, and a third, Madhurjya Saikia, was assaulted while documenting a local council election clash. Unions are fiercely criticizing the state’s failure to protect journalists and demanding the introduction of a comprehensive law to safeguard media personnel. The attacks confirm the findings of the IFJ’s South Asia Press Freedom Report, which recorded 13 targeted attacks and 5 killings in the previous year alone, fueling the call for India to adopt stronger international conventions on journalist safety.

Given the high impunity rate and repeated failures to arrest assailants (as seen in the Sneha Barwe case), how can media unions successfully pressure state governments to enact and enforce a comprehensive Journalist Protection Law?