Cost of filing RTI with police in Gujarat: Activist-journalist Shailesh Patel "murdered" by bootleggers

Shailesh Patel

By Pankti Jog*
In Mahatma Gandhi’s dry state, even asking for information about illegal liquor trading has proved to be life snatching. Shailesh Kantilal Patel of Surendranagar district of Gujarat filed a right to information (RTI) application on June 15, 2015 at 12 noon at the district superintendent of police’s (DSP’s) office of Surendrangar district. He was murdered on the same day late night.
Shailesh Patel’s RTI application, typed on Rs 20 stamp paper, had only one query – details of cases registered since 2011 against one Rafik Yunus alias Haji who is allegedly into liquor trading, and also about what action police have taken regarding the same.
Contends his sister Praveena Patel, who is police constable and works with Mahila Police Station in Surendrangar town, police informed about the RTI application to local crime branch (LCB), whose cops approached Shailesh Patel to make a settlement. But when Shailesh Patel refused, “he was murdered”.
The in-charge public information officer (PIO) in the DSP office, on being approached, said, he accepted the RTI request and “immediately transferred to the city police station, to which the matter belongs”. On contacting police inspector (PI) of the city police station, who is also the PIO, he said he received Shailesh Patel’s RTI application only on June 18, thee days after the murder.
According to the police, Shailesh Patel had had lent Rs 50,000 to the accused, and this triggered the murder. However, his 80-year-old mother denies this. “My son asked for information, and that is why the bootleggers murdered him”, she said. Shailesh Patel worked as reporter with the local “Tankar” weekly.

Shailesh Patel's press i-card

Illegal liquor distilleries and trading is a nuisance in Surendrangar, local people complained. “Several complaints have been filed so far, and even women took out rallies against bootlegging. But when police has strong nexus with bootleggers, how can they take action against them? We feel here LCB and police both are in partnership with illegal liquor distilleries owners”, said a shop keeper.
Coincidently, around 80 women reached Gandhinagar to meet chief minister Anandiben Patel to submit a memorandum on June 16, in which one of the major issues highlighted was illegal liquor trade in Surendrangar. The memorandum said, illegal liquor has led to sharp rise in violence against women. But the chief minister refused to meet them, and they were sent to the secretary, food and civil supplies department.
What next?
“We do not hope that police will do proper investigation. We will represent to higher authorities regarding police role in Shailesh Patel’s murder”, his family members said. His brother also plans to file a complaint under section 18 of RTI Act, demanding for proper inquiry, and information to be given.
The Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP), Gujarat’s apex body of RTI activists, has decided to submit a report to the State information Commission, requesting it to order for the disclosure of the information on the website, as this information has proved to be too sensitive. MAGP will also be appealing to the RTI community across the state and the nation to file RTI and seek information which Shailesh Patel had wanted from the police.
Till date six persons seeking information through RTI have lost their lives in Gujarat. The first one to die was Amit Jethva, who sought information regarding action taken against illegal mining around the Gir forest, the only abode of Asiatic lion. In none of the cases accused has been punished. Then, there been around 40 incidents of severe attacks on RTI activists, as per the information received by MAGP on its helpline, 9924085000.
The Whistleblowers’ Protection Act, which was passed one-and-a-half-years ago, has still not implemented by the Government of India. The Gujarat government has not framed any mechanism for protecting the whistleblower, either.
---
*Senior activist, MAGP. This report was prepared following the visit of MAGP team to Surendrangar and meeting with victims’ family members, and visit to the DSP office and the city police station on June 19, 2015

Comments

Unknown said…

Government wakes up when TV channels pester them. Those who know the contacts should send this news to Times Now or Aaj Tak channels.

June 23, 2015

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Search This Blog