The attack and the death come at a time when RTI activists have been criticising the draft rules of the central government which state that RTI applications will stand abated if the applicant dies.
RTI activists from Maharashtra and outside condemned the killing of an RTI user from Pimpri Chinchwad who was taking up civic issues with the help of the Act. Suhas Haaldankar, a 36-year-old RTI user, was killed on Sunday night. The death takes total murder of RTI users in state to 16 which is highest in the country.
The attack and the death come at a time when RTI activists have been criticising the draft rules of the central government which state that RTI applications will stand abated if the applicant dies.
"He was taking up local civic issues by filing RTI applications. He worked as a social worker and was also involved with different political parties at different times. He had joined AAP, then Congress and then NCP," said VijayKumbhar, an RTI activist from Pune.
He added, "He was said to be a regular in RTI workshops and nothing till now has come to light where he seems to be at wrong or was ever involved in any corrupt practice. He would use RTI and based on that, he would take up issues."
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), which has been taking up issues, has filed a complaint with the human rights commission. "Draft rules, which states that RTI applications stand abated after RTI applicant is dead needs to be dropped," said Venkatesh Nayak of CHRI, who has written to the human rights commission.
"Actually there is no fear now in the political leadership and the vested interest team when they attack RTI users and RTI advocaters. They can be killed easily and nothing happens to the culprits. Even though information is published, which was sought by RTI activist who was killed, illegalities continue to thrive. Government is not at all seeing what is happening. This when the slogan of the present government is to stop corrupt practices. They do not seem to be abiding by PM's message of transparency. There is a lacunae in implementing the same. We will pursue the matter and if there is any RTI application pending by him, we will ask authorities that information he had sought be published," said Bhaskar Prabhu, of Mahitit Adhikar Manch
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