In a shocking incident, Ram Thakur (48), an activist and whistleblower, was shot dead in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district on Saturday evening.
“Mr. Thakur was part of the Bihar NREGA Watch, an organisation which was working on securing employment for the people. He was active in the organisation and also worked on corruption cases in his individual capacity. He had filed vigilance cases. In the Ratnauli panchayat, the administration had shown an expenditure of Rs. 40 lakh, whereas people said hardly any money had been spent,” Ashish Ranjan of the Jan Jagran Shakti Sanghatan (JJSS) told The Hindu .
The police said Mr. Thakur had a long-standing dispute with the village mukhiya, Raj Kumar Sahni. “The mukhiya’s son is suspected of the murder. Mr. Thakur had filed complaints against the mukhiya regarding his functioning. There have been earlier tiffs where one of them had beaten up the other. We are still probing,” Rajesh Kumar, senior superintendent of police, told The Hindu .