Gujarat Congress MLA 'siding with attackers' of Dalit RTI activist: Civil society team

A fact-finding team member with Amit Parmar

By A Representative
A civil society fact-finding team has taken strong exception to a Dalit MLA belonging to the Congress, Pravin Maru, for pressurizing the local administration in Botad district to take back the police complaint concerning brutal attack on Dalit rights and Right to Information (RTI) activist Amit Parmar, belonging to Khopala village. Instead of helping Parmar, the Congress MLA is siding of the attackers, Parmar’s family members alleged while talking with the team.
The attack on Parmar took place following he made an RTI plea on details of budgeted allocation and expenditure made over the last three years from the grant received by the village panchayat for developmental work. The plea insisted, the panchayat give him the name of the agencies to whom the contract was given and the work done.
Consisting of RTI activist Bharatsinh Zala, also a labour rights leader; Minaxiben Joshi of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL); Kantiblal Parmar and Yash Makwana, Dalit rights activists; Pratik Rupala, a Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) advocate; and Noorjaha Diwan of the human rights organization Anhad, the fact-finding team quotes the victim, Amit Parmar, as saying that he was attacked on November 24, 2019, almost a month after he made the plea on funds details.

Pravin Maru

Recuperating from his injury, Parmar told the team that though the village has a woman sarpanch, her husband and their son with the help of “some anti-social elements” were ruling the roost in the village. They had occupied a common grazing land and were using it for their personal gain by doing farming on it. The attack took place after he and his brother, Vinodbhai Jerambhai Parmar, proceeded towards Gadhda town on bike.
At about time 2.30 pm, between villages Lakhanka and Adtala, four persons riding a Hero Honda bike and an Activa scooter, reached up to them. Their mouths were covered with handkerchief, the team was told. They were armed with iron pipes and other weapons. They stopped Parmar’s bike. After abusing him, they began hitting him brutally, asking him to withdraw his RTI plea, otherwise they would kill him.
Injured, Parmar’s brother called for the 108 ambulance, which carried him to the Umrada government hospital for treatment, from where he was shifted to a Bhavnagar hospital. Under treatment, the report prepared by the team says, Parmar’s is not an isolated incident. In all, 14 murders and over 240 attacks on RTI applicants have taken place in Gujarat, even as the RTI Act completes 14 years of its existence.
The fact-finding team report said, Parmar was threatened several times earlier also after he made applications to the district and taluka officials for get the common village land rid of illegal occupation by dominant persons in the village. Copies of the application were sent to the state revenue minister and leader of the opposition in the Gujarat state assembly. He had also made complaints against caste discrimination of Dalits in the village, stating, they were not allowed to enter into the village temple.

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria* As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.

The Galgotia model: How India is losing the war on knowledge

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Galgotia is the face of 'quality education' as envisioned by those who never considered education a tool for social change or national uplift — and yet this is precisely the model Narendra Modi pursued in Gujarat as Chief Minister. In the mid-eighties, when many of us were growing up, 'Nirma' became one of the most popular advertisements on Doordarshan. Whether the product was any good hardly seemed to matter.

Beyond the conflict: Experts outline roadmap for humane street dog solutions

By A Representative In a direct response to the rising polarization surrounding India’s street dog population, a high-level coalition of parliamentarians, legal experts, and civil society leaders gathered in the capital to propose a unified national framework for humane animal management. The emergency deliberations were sparked by a recent Suo Moto judgment that has significantly deepened the divide between animal welfare advocates and those calling for the removal of community dogs, a tension that has recently escalated into reported violence against both animals and their caretakers in states like Telangana.

Search This Blog