Frontline: Bihar: Wednesday,
April 03, 2013.
A
right-to-information activist, Ram Kumar Thakur, who is a member of Bihar
MGNREGA Watch and an advocate, was shot dead by a group of persons when he was
returning home after work in the local court on March 23. He had raised his
voice against the alleged embezzlement of funds meant for the Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Ratnauli panchayat of Muzaffarpur
district.
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| Ram Kumar Thakur |
Ram Kumar
Thakur is the fifth whistle-blower to be killed in Bihar in the past five
years. He had produced muster rolls of people to whom MGNREGS wages had been
disbursed and alleged that many of the names were fictitious and many others
were of ineligible people. He had also alleged that the mukhiya of the village,
Raj Kumar Sahni, had siphoned off MGNREGA funds. The panchayat administration
had shown an expenditure of Rs.40 lakh, but activists claimed that hardly any
money had been spent.
Ram Kumar
Thakur and a few other people had founded the Lok Jagaran Manch, an advocacy
organisation that helped workers unionise and highlighted corruption in the
public distribution system. In 2012 Thakur had pointed to illegal diversion of
the funds received by the panchayat to distribute solar lights.
Following the
murder, activists jammed highways in the area and gheraoed police stations.
Kamayani Swami, a trade unionist, said Ram Kumar Thakur was instrumental in
preventing corruption in government schemes and pointed out that he had been
attacked at least five times in the past, once in front of the police. “It is
strange that the police did not give him any protection despite several
requests from him,” she told Frontline. In January 2012, a social audit of
MGNREGA organised by Ram Kumar Thakur had found many discrepancies in the way
wages were distributed.
At that time
the mukhiya’s supporters had clashed with Thakur and other activists in front
of the police. In subsequent months, members of the Lok Jagaran Manch,
including Ram Kumar Thakur, were assaulted many times, informed sources said.
After Thakur’s brother, Janardan, was attacked on December 25 he had written to
several high officials in the police that he needed protection but to no avail.
Ram Kumar Thakur was also the main witness in an MGNREGA vigilance case.
The activists
said the district authorities were equally responsible for the murder. Thakur’s
nephew, Sujit Kumar, alleged that the police took nearly two hours to get him
to hospital, where he was declared dead. The police registered an FIR against
six persons—the mukhiya and his three sons and two nephews. Senior
Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar suspended the station house officer of
Ratnauli police station but denied charges of police complicity and said it was
likely the result of a “personal dispute”.
Kamayani
Swami said the police could not wash their hands of “the corruption scandals
which had led to the ‘personal dispute’.” “Last year, he filed an RTI query
seeking the muster rolls, but only half the information was provided to him. He
started receiving threats from the mukhiya after that, which increased after he
filed a case with the Vigilance Commission. The mukhiya issued open threats of
death,” said Sanjay of Bihar MGNREGA Watch.
Ajoy
Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
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