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| MHA to collect info about attacks on RTI activists | | Will J&K police cooperate? | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, July 21: As attacks on whistleblowers particularly Right to Information activists continues in several parts of India, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has launched an exercise to collect data about attacks on the whistleblowers.
Various Members of Parliament have been frequently seeking information from the government about the number of attacks on RTI activists and other whistleblowers. The government has often replied that it does not maintain such a database centrally.
RTI users, activists, organizations, NGOs have frequently highlighted how unsafe it is to seek information in the public interest under the RTI Act.
The instances of attacks on RTI activists and social activists and whistleblowers have received wide coverage. The news articles about such attacks are publicized prominently and followed up on in terms of the progress made in the investigation of such cases.
Every year the government of India collects data from the police station level across the country including Jammu and Kashmir about the occurrence of various crimes under several central and state laws during the previous year. The focal point for collecting such information is the Delhi-based National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) at the Centre and its counterparts in the states-State Crime Records Bureaus and their feeders- District Crime Records Bureaus. The NCRB publishes a wealth of information about the occurrence of and actions on crime in its Annual Crime in India Reports (CIR) accessible on its website. The CIR for 2014 is due soon.
The NCRB has circulated a new template to all states, Union territories and cities for capturing statistics relating to the occurrence of crime. The latest version of the data collection template mentions three new categories of crime statistics at para number 20 on Page 11) Attack on media person 2) Attack on whistleblower 3) Attack on RTI/social activist.
This data is to be collected under the crime-head-Grievous hurt of varying degrees-which are recognized in Sections 325, 326, 326A and 326B of the Indian Penal Code.
In J&K, several RTI activists have been physically attacked by those people who were exposed for their wrongdoings.
Recently a retired government official namely Abdul Salam Kuchay hailing from Branwar village in central Kashmir's Budgam district was ruthlessly beaten after he exposed some people who had been receiving migrant relief by illegal means from the last several years.
Kuchay alleges that the families never migrated to Jammu as they live in their own village and one of the beneficiaries Chowdhry Ghulam Mohammad happens to be the Sarpanch of his village as well. "Till date the culprits haven't been booked. I have now brought this matter into the notice of IG Police, who assured that the culprits will be brought to book," Kuchay told Early Times. "We welcome the decision taken by MHA for collecting the data about attacks on RTI activists, but the problem is that will police provide exact data to the MHA as in many cases FIRs are never registered when an RTI activist or a whistleblower is attacked," said Dr Mushtaq Khan, an RTI activist from Srinagar. |
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