SYYED MANSOOR AGHA analyses the mysterious killing of Bhopal based RTI activist ShehlaMasood and alleged hands of politicians and police personnel in it.
Killing of RTI activist ShehlaMasood is not a case in isolation. She is 11th activist killed in last 11 months. Efforts to expose the nexus between criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and money makers in disguise of politicians, corruption in high places have become synonymous to exposing self to death. Shehla, 38, was a high profile fearless unmarried lady of Bhopal. At times she had been disturbed by the murders of those who exposed corruption in high places like SatyendraDubey, SatishShetty, ShanmughanManjunath, and Shashidhar Mishra.She was aware of threats also but refused to budge. Perhaps she did not understand that so soon she may come to share their fate. With these lines we condole to her old father Sultan Masood, a retired officer of State Education Department, her aunt and the only sister, friends and family members.
On Friday, September 2, 2011, the case was handed over to CBI as police investigations failed to yield any conclusions. Her father has alleged that “high-profile people conspired to kill my daughter.” Names of BJP M.P. (RajyaSabha) Tarun Vijay, local BJP M.L.A. Dhruv Narayan Singh and IPS officer PawanShrivastava (DIG Indore) have cropped up in media as suspects. DhruvNarain Singh had been her close associate in her NGO ”Udai” and helped her earn many contracts to organise programmes under her Management Company ‘Miracles’ till 2009. BJP sources, however, said that Singh had started avoiding her since early this year. Police is probing why the friend of BJP leader Trun Vijay had purchased property worth Rs 80 lakh for her in the outskirts of Bhopal; he was also instrumental in settingup a meeting between BJP leaders and Shehla.
Tarun Vijay acknowledged his contacts with her and having spoken to her several times during her last two days. Tarun Vijay claimed to have discussed Anna Movement but an audio tape on YouTube Shehla is heard making desperate efforts to have a meeting to resolve some issues. A land deal is suspected to be bone of contention between her and BJP leaders. It is not clear which friend of BJP leader provided funds to Shehla to purchase the land and what was his interest behind this generosity. Certainly there may be some fishy story behind the deal and differences.
Shehla has been working on the issues like good governance, police reforms, environment, Tiger’s conservation, women’s rights, transparency, RTI Act, minority’s rights, etc. Sometimes back she raised the issue of misappropriation of Tigers conservation fund. She is reported to have complained, “The MP government has been given approximately Rs 2,000 crore over the last five years for tiger conservation. But there have been no tigers in the Panna reserve since 2006. So where is that money?” It is not known why this matter was not followed to its logical conclusion. She had sought help of some other persons.The question was also raised in the Parliament.Some action was taken to conserve the tigers but nobody cared or dared to trace where this money went?
Recently she was working on illegal mining activities of diamond major, Rio Tinto in reserved forest area. Media reports suggest that some BJP leaders of the State and a member of royal family of Chhattisgarh also have stakes in this company and sources suspect this issue to be the cause of the murder.
Police had already questioned Dhruv and PawanSrivastava but it is being held as mere eyewash. Though the State police have expressed intention to question Vijay Tarun but could not muster the courage to confront Mr.Tarun, a former editor of RSS mouthpiece The Organiser.The name of a member of the royal family also figured in the list of “to be interrogated”.
Currently Shehla was chairperson of State Unit of India Against Corruption, the NGO, under which Anna Hazare was spearheading his campaign. In April she sat on hunger strike in support of Anna’s anti-corruption campaign. She earned popularity while working on wildlife conservation. She raised issues related to the deaths of tigers in the various sanctuaries of Madhya Pradesh. On August 16, 2011 she was shot in her car parked in front of her house in posh Koh-e-Fiza locality at about 11 A.M. when she was about to leave for Boat Club in Bhopal to join the Anna’s campaign for Jan Lokpal Bill. She was shot at her neck from the point blank and was found collapsed in the front seat by family members who came out to see why her car did not move. Nobody saw the assailant. No body heard the gun shot.
Strangely, core members of Team Anna and TV Channels churning stories of the movement 24×7 did not consider her ‘martyrdom’ worth mentioning while even ordinary supporters who wore the ‘Anna Cap’ or pretended to set on anshan (desisting to eat cereals) were generously applauded by the team and repeatedly shown on TVs. She was not a ‘fundamentalist’ Muslim as she had close links and monetary interest attached with the leaders of Sangh, one of them a close person of SadhviPragyaSingh Thakur, prime accused in Malegaon terror attacks.
Mr.Trun Vijay admitted having close contacts with her and that she provided services to organise the programmes in different cities on the occasions of the death and birth anniversaries of BJP ideologue Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. Masood’s event management company, Miracles, organised a number of programmes hosted by the state culture department including a dance show performed by BJP MP HemaMalini in Bharat Bhavan multi-arts centre in Bhopal in July 2008. Sources in police headquarters revealed that at least one major RSS function held outside the state was also organised with the help of Miracles. Masood got these assignments allegedly upon the insistence of Dhruv Narayan.
Her differences with IPS officer PawanShrivastava started around this time. Shrivastava was then director, culture department. Masood acquiring government assignments through Dhruv Narayan allegedly upset Shrivastava, and he refused to clear her payments after which she complained to the state’s DGP SK Rout and the home minister, claiming a threat to her life from Shrivastava.
Sources in the police department said most of the suspects are Masood’s former ‘associates’ who had lately begun evading her. They all belong to the ruling party. Their rifts started after Shehla, as an RTI activist, concentrated unearthing the corruption cases. Police suspect that her murder could have been executed by a shooter from Bhind district in Chambal. The state government has announcedRs. 1 lakh award for the clues of the crime. M.P. Government has agreed to the demands to hand over the case to CBI and communicated the same to the Central Government.
During the interrogation, Dhruv Narayan admitted that not only was Masood in touch with him but he was also attached to her NGO Udai for a while. However, he said he later had differences with the RTI activist. “She used to speak to me often,” Singh told cops.
A friend of her, Kamayani Bali-Mahabal wrote in her blog, “She had also revealed that she was being threatened by the Madhya Pradesh police.”
According to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) AdarshKatiyar, the motive of the killing remains unknown. Most probably her RTI activities are main cause of the crime. Her father Sultan Masood said that “her daughter’s murder was part of a planned conspiracy.” Shehla’s murder was a conspiracy in which several high-profile people are involved,” Sultan said. Police is reluctant to pinpoint the culprit as had been in such cases. Now the ball is in the court of CBI.
Investigating officials, who scanned Shehla’s mobile phone and laptop to gather information, came across documents of property deal and according to the officials privy to the investigation the police had stopped probing towards finding out as to who were the other people in the land deal and from where Shehla arranged the money to buy the land as the case has been handed over to CBI.
Other RTI activists killed during last 11 months:
1. AmitJethwa of Gujarat was shot dead on July 20, 2010. He was working on digging about illegal mining that were a danger to the Gir reserve.
2.DattatreyaPatil (farmer) of Kolhapur, Maharashtra was beaten up and slashed with swords on May 31, 2010. He had filed an RTI against horse trading in Kohlapur Municipal Election.
3.VitthalGiteBeed, Maharashtra was killed on April 21, 201. He had exposed irregularities in a school in his village.
4.ArunSawant of Badlapur, Maharashtra was shot dead on Feb 26, 2010.
5.SatishShetty of Pune was killed on Jan 13, 2010. He had exposed major land scams, near Mumbai-Pune expressway.
6.VishramLaxmanDodiya of Ahmedabad was shot dead on Feb 11, 2010. He had sought info on illegal electricity connections in the city.
7.Shashidhar Mishra (street vendor) Begusarai, Bihar was shot dead on Feb 14, 2010. He had filed more than a 1000 petitions before his murder.
8.RamdasGhadegaokar of Nanded, Maharashtra was stoned to death in August 2010 as he took on the sand mafia.
9.Sola RangaRao,Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh was found murdered on April 11, 2010. He filed a petition on funding of the village draining system.
10.Irfan Yusuf Qazi of Jaitapur,Maharashtra was killed when his scooter was hit by a police jeep. He had protested against nuclear power plant in Jaitapur on December 18, 2010.
Last word: In fact, killers are not killing RTI activists but trying to kill RTI Act itself. If the Government wants to remain RTI law effective, these cases should be investigated quickly. Possibility of criminal intention of RTI activists, if any, should also be exposed.
[The writer is Gen Sec of Forum of Civil Rights; email: [email protected]]