The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) Saturday strongly condemned the killing of senior journalist KJ Singh and his mother in Mohali and urged the state government to track down the killers

New Delhi: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) Saturday strongly condemned the killing of senior journalist KJ Singh and his mother in Mohali and urged the state government to track down the killers.

Earlier on Saturday, Singh and his 92-year-old mother were found dead at their residence.

An official spokesman of the Chief Minister's Office said while Singh's throat had been slit, his mother Gurcharan Kaur was suspected to have been strangled.

Expressing outrage, the journalists union also referred to murders of two more scribes earlier this month — Gauri Lankesh in Karnataka on 5 September, and Shantanu Bhowmick in Tripura on 20 September.

"Three journalists killed in last three weeks in different parts of the country exposing the fragility of safety of journalists in the country," the IJU said in a statement.

Singh, who was in his sixties, was a former news editor of The Indian Express, The Tribune and The Times of India in Chandigarh.

"We urge upon the Chief Minister of Punjab to immediately take steps to track down the killers of KJ Singh and his mother to allay the fears of journalists community," the union said. It also demanded enactment of a law at the national level for safety of the journalists.

The IJU urged the Press Council of India to take suo motu cognisance of the murder of Singh and take appropriate action.