NEW DELHI: A journalist has been arrested in eastern India after he made comments on social media criticising the police and demanding a law protecting reporters in a region embroiled in a decades-long Maoist insurgency.

Vishnu Singh said Wednesday that his brother, reporter Prabhat Singh, was taken away by police late Monday. Singh works in the Bastar region of India's Chhattisgarh state, which has been hit by violence.

Singh was brought before a court Tuesday and charged with circulating obscene material.

The southeastern region is a difficult place for reporters because criticism of security forces is often viewed as support for the rebels. Two other journalists have been arrested in the last year and are fighting charges of supporting the Maoists.