Of 27 persons hacked to death for using the RTI tool, four were from Gujarat alone: Campaigners

By Our Representative
The Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP), the state’s premier Right to Information (RTI) campaign body, has expressed dismay over the fact that during the last eight years, as many as 27 RTI whistle blowers were hacked to death all over India, out of which four were from Gujarat. Those who were killed in Gujarat after fighting for their rights under RTI were -- Vishram Dodiya,Amit Jethva, Jabardan Gadhvi, Nadeem Saiyyad. Suggesting that this is a “poor record” for a state which calls itself progressive, a presentation on the eighth anniversary of the RTI Act said, in the country as a whole over 155 whistle blowers were “brutally attacked” in India but survived, of which 24 such attacks took place in Gujarat.
Talking with newspersons in Ahmedabad on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the Act, which they said has “helped marginalized sections of India bring in major changes in their life by seeking information from government sources on disbursement under different schemes promulgated from time to time for their benefit”, MAGP campaigners, Harinesh Pandya and Pankti Jog, also regretted that the Gujarat Information Commission has lately begun to show lack of transparency.
“The Gujarat Information Commission website had put up details of the cases pending with the commission, which is the highest authority in the state to decide on RTI applications. The details were removed just a week back for unknown reasons”, the activists said, adding, “According to the information we have been able to obtain from the commission, there are around 8,800 cases still pending to be cleared by the commission. However, it is difficult to understand why couldn’t the exact number be put up on the website, with details like the number of years they are pending and the reasons for pending cases.”
When contacted, a senior commission official tried to reason that the details were “removed” because the commission was in the process of revamping the website. However, the campaigners suggested, the commission should show proactive disclosure, by which it swears. “It is unfortunate that the general administration department (GAD) of the Gujarat government should send details of implementation of the RTI Act to the commission every three months, but it never does. The commission on its part has also not asked why such indifference is there on the part of the commission.”
Significantly, this was done at a time when the Commonweath Human Rights Initiative, in its new report, "The Use of Information Laws in India",  has taken strong exception to the fact that the Gujarat Information Commission is one of the few states which have been refusing to upload their annual reports on their website. Other major states have not done it ever since 2006, when the Act became operational in all the states, are Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The activists said, their latest efforts suggest that there are ways to protect the whistleblowers from brutal attacks at a time when powerful interests are refusing to part with information. “The first step could be that the applicants report to the RTI helpline 09924085000, run by the MAGP, regarding the threats, records voice complaint. It can send a fax message. This would help the RTI helpline to document the case and send details of the threat to the information commissioner, the district superintendent of police, and respective police stations with a demand to ensure protection of citizen.”
The MAGP’s next step is to guide the whistleblower to file a complaint with the police station, and also with commission under Section 18 of RTI Act. The complaint should be made in writing. “We have found that this method has been of great help and we were able to save two dozen lives in Gujarat”, the activists said, adding, “This helps the Information Commission, upon receiving complaint, to send a letter the police and the respective department, to which the RTI application has been addressed.”
This also helps the helpline to fax details to the district collector and the respective department to immediately put info into public domain. “This is followed up by the “demand to put information in public domain. If required similar RTI application are filed by the RTI activist in various parts of city, state, or country”, the activists said, adding, “At the same time, it is essential to use the social media and email information to as many persons as possible as soon as threat is received.”

List of whistleblowers killed over the last eight year:

S.No.	Name	Place	Form of attack	Probable Cause	Date
1.	Amit Jethwa	Gujarat	Shot to death	Enquiries about illegal mining that were a danger to the Gir reserve	July 20, 2010
2.	Dattatreya Patil (farmer)	Kohlapur, Maharashtra	Beaten up and slashed with swords	Filed RTI against horse trading in Kohlapur Municipal Election	May 31, 2010
3.	Vitthal Gite	Beed, Maharashtra	Killed by under the members scanner.	Exposed irregularities in a school in his village	April 21, 2010
4.	Arun Sawant	Badlapur, Maharashtra	Shot dead		Feb 26, 2010
5.	Satish Shetty	Pune, Maharastra	Assaulted by assailants	Exposed major land scams, near Mumbai-Pune expressway	Jan 13 2010
6.	Vishram Laxman Dodiya	Ahmadabad	Shot dead	Sought info on illegal electricity connections in the city	Feb 11 2010
7.	Shashidhar Mishra (street vendor)	Begusarai, Bihar	Shot dead	Filed more than a 1000 petitions before his murder	Feb 14 2010
8.	Ramdas Ghadegaokar	Nanded, Maharashtra	Stoned to death	Took on the sand mafia	27th August 2010
9.	Sola Ranga Rao	Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh	Found murdered	Filed a petition on funding of the village draining system.	April 11 2010
10.	Irfan Yusuf Qazi	Jaitapur,Mahrashtra	Killed when his scooter was hit by a police jeep	Protested against nuclear power plant in Jaitapur	December 18, 2010
11	Nadeem Sayyad	Ahmedabad, Gujarat	Shot dead	Sought info and complaint regarding Illegal slaughter houses	5th Nov 2001
12	Shehala Masood	MP	Shot Dead	Trading of Animal Skin,organs	16th August 2011
13	Niyamat Ansari	Jerua village in Latehar district of Jharkhand.	Beaten to Death	MGNREGA	2nd March 2011
14	Jabardan Gadhvi	Kutch Gujarat	Provoked to committee suicide	Revenue Record	21St Feb 2011
15	Lalit Mehta	Jharkhand	Beaten to death	MGNREGA	15th May 2008
16	Venkatesh	Karnataka	Shot dead	Land scam	7th June 2008
17	Premkant Jha	Virar, Maharastra	Shot dead	Vasai Municipal Corporation regarding Constructive Activity	25th Feb 2012
18	Kameshwar Yadav	Jharkahand	Miurdered	Sought information on the nexus among officers, politicians, contractors and middlemen in NREGA related irrigation projects in Deori.	6th July 2008
19	Sou	Haryana			2nd October 2-11
20	S. Bhuvaneshwaran	Tamil Nadu			1st Oct 2012
21	Ramvilas Singh	Bihar			12th August 2011
22	V. Balasubramanyam	Tamil Nadu			18th Sept 2010
23	Vasudev Ediga	Udipi Karnataka			12th Jan 2013
24	Shambhu Singh	Rajasthan	Beaten brutally and then died in the hospital (was receiving threat for last 2-3 months)	Local development work of thePanchyat	7th October 2013
25	Kumar Thakur	Bihar	Beaten to death	MGNREGA	23rd March 2013
26	Manjunath Shanmugam	Lakshmipur, UP	Shot Dead	IOC	19th Nov 2005
27	Murlidhar Jayswal	Munger, Bihar	Beaten to death	MGNREGA	23rd March 2013