The murder of RTI activist Shehla Masood in Bhopal found an echo in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday with a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member expressing serious concern over the killings across the country and demanding steps to protect whistleblowers.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Moin-ul-Hassan said the RTI activist was killed on a day when lakhs of people in the country were out in the streets protesting corruption.
Noting that at least 10 RTI activists had been killed in various parts of the country during the last one year, Mr. Hassan sought to draw the attention of the government towards the urgent need to provide some kind of security to the whistleblowers. He said the purpose of the RTI Act would be lost if the killings continued.
Mr. Hassan said the Bhopal police was of the view that Masood's campaign for wildlife protection and conservation might have hurt certain sections, and possibly led to her killing.
While the RTI Act was meant to ensure that people had the right to information, the activists were getting killed. Masood was found shot dead inside her car in front of her house in the Koh-e-Fiza locality in Bhopal on August 16. She had gone on fast recently in support of Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign.
She was also involved in other issues, including wildlife conservation and the deaths of tigers in sanctuaries in the Bharatiya-Janata-Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh. The Congress has already demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the issue.
Keywords: whistleblowers, Shehla Masood, RTI activists, RTI Act
It is only to threathen the Activitst. But on contrary it will become strong day by day. Mostly Police are not ready to give protection to the whistleblowers and RTI activists. The reasons best known to them. On contrary they try to implicate the RTI activitst in the cases and keep them busy in Police cases. The people who want to place the law in place are being targetted. I hope that God will help the people who are doing the good job. Certainly not the ruling Government.
From the moment an RTI request is made by the activist, he or she stands exposed and is vulnerable. It is extremely dangerous for activists. Anonymous RTI requests are the solution to this problem. Civil society organisations and even News papers should accept RTI request questions from activists and forward them to protect the identities of these whistleblowers. Whistleblower protection unfortunately is being developed by a committee chaired by Abhishek Singhvi who has been involved in whistleblower suppression as a lawyer! (The much reported Central Bank of India case in which Singhvi's was the top bill. Rs 48.5 Lakhs was paid to him in fees by the Bank to suppress the whistleblower. Singhvi's son's growing legal practise Axon in Delhi is involved in litigating against Google in the Delhi HC, as Google had refused to shutdown some whistleblower web sites. In summary, there is conflict of interest for which Singhvi should have ideally recused himself). Without strong whistle blower protection, precious lives will continue to be lost. It is utterly disgusting because much of it is preventable by shield laws and genuine whistleblower protection.
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