RTI (Right to Information) activists staged a protest here seeking a thorough probe into the murder of Lingaraju, who was hacked to death by an armed gang allegedly at the behest of Govindaraju, land dealer and husband of the Azad Nagar councillor Gowramma.
Lingaraju, an RTI activist, paid with his life for filing a complaint with the Lokayukta against the couple’s unaccounted for wealth.
Demanding that the government act against the accused, the activists said that this is the third murder of an RTI activist in the city in the last three years.
The first was that of Venkatesh, killed in Kengeri Satellite Town for trying to expose a land scam in 2009.
While the police tried to “hush up the case as an accident”, intervention by the State Human Rights Commission led to arrests, said B.H. Veeresha, convener of the protest.
He further said that the murder of RTI activist A.T. Babu, allegedly by the liquor lobby, shows how vulnerable are those fighting corruption.
It was the High Court of Karnataka that had taken suo motu action, and appointed amicus curiae to assist the Lingaraju murder case, he said, while the government agencies were apathetic.
They demanded that the government appoint an IPS officer to investigate the case and transfer the case to a fast-track court.