Lucknow Newsline: Lucknow:
Friday, February 08, 2013.
An RTI
activist, who was also the headmaster in a government primary school, was shot
dead by unidentified men in Mohammadabad police station area of Farrukhabad
district on Thursday.
The victim, Anand Prakash Rajput (42), had
used RTI to get information which he used to get three teachers dismissed from
service for getting jobs on the basis of forged documents and the process of
dismissal of three other teachers was in progress, said Farrukhabad Additional
SP Om Prakash Singh.
Singh said
that they were gathering information about these teachers as they are “prime
suspects”. He also said that Rajput was known as an RTI activist and often
raised voice against irregularities in the Basic Education Department.
Farrukhabad
SP Nilabja Choudhury said that about 15 RTI applications filed by Rajput were
pending with the Education Department. The SP said that Rajput had also been
chargesheeted in a case for allegedly molesting a colleague in another primary
school where he was posted in 2010. The case is pending in court, he said.
The
district’s Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) Bhagwat Patel said Rajput was a
headmaster at Ram Nagar primary school in Mohammadabad area. He had been
transferred to this school in 2010 after a teacher levelled charges of
molestation against him in his previous school.
However, he
said, the departmental enquiry into the matter had ended and he was not facing
any other enquiry presently.
Patel also
said that Rajput had filed RTI applications related to the details of the
educational documents of teachers posted in various primary schools in the
district. Several such applications are under process at his office, said the
BSA.
The ASP said,
on Thursday, Rajput left the school along with a Class V student Mukesh at
12.30 pm on his motorcycle, to bring midday meal from a local supplier. Mukesh
told the police that they had gone about 100 metres, when three youths riding a
motorcycle stopped the teacher. They talked to Rajput for five minutes.
Suddenly one of them whipped out a pistol and fired at him.
Rajput got a
bullet injury in the head and fell on ground while the assailants drove away.
He died before he could be taken to hopsital, the ASP said. The assailants did
not hurt the boy. Rajput’s brother Sunil said that his brother was fighting
against corruption in education and he had been eliminated only for this
reason.