Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed concern over the rise in fatal attacks on journalists in the country. “Any death is worrisome, but [when] journalists lose their lives just because they try to show the truth, it becomes even more serious then,” he said while speaking at the commemoration event of the National Press Day in Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi. Modi said the press was responsible for upholding free speech in the country.

The prime minister hailed the freedom of the press, and said any form of external control on the press was not good for society. However, he advised self-regulation on the part of the press. “Mahatma Gandhi had said uncontrolled writing can create huge problems but he had also said that external interference would wreak havoc. Controlling it [media] externally cannot be imagined,” he said, adding that it was the responsibility of the Press Council of India to ensure appropriate changes with time, PTI reported.

A Dainik Bhaskar journalist was shot dead in his village in Bihar on November 12. Local journalists suspect that the assailants were part of the stone crusher mafia. Another journalist, Rajdev Rajan, was killed by bike-borne assailants in the state’s Siwan district on May 13. Journalists in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar area have been facing a vicious crackdown from the state police and other authorities.