MHA starts collecting data on attacks on scribes, RTI activists & whistleblowers

Economic Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, 22 July 2015.

The Union Home Ministry has started collecting data related to attacks on mediapersons, RTI activists and whistleblowers in the background of a series of assaults on them in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh recently.

The collection of data is being done by National Crime Records Bureau based here which has introduced three new categories attack on mediapersons, attack on whistleblowers and attack on RTI activists in its form circulated to police stations across the country this year.

There was no centralised data on attacks of RTI activists, whistleblowers and journalists as investigation of cases were handled by state police and there was also no clarity on definition of these three categories.

NCRB will be collecting the data under the heading of grievous hurt of varying degrees which are being registered under relevant sections of IPC.

"If an RTI activist/social activist, mediaperson or whistleblower is murdered (Heavens forbid!), then that case is counted under the Crime Head- Murder (Section 302)

"....the larger category of 'murders' ....gives no breakups regarding the identity of victims," Venkatesh Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, which also collects crime data, said citing difficulties in the new template.

The data is published every year by NCRB in the form of its reports.

"That the government has woken up to the cruel reality of attacks on citizens who speak the truth and demand their right to know the truth about public affairs is very welcome.

Until now, the only source where information about attacks on RTI activists was the dedicated Wikipedia page," he said.

Citing Vyapam scam deaths, Nayak said while a citizen who blows the whistle on wrongdoing in government may file a complaint about a resultant attack, an internal whistleblower, namely an employee of a government office, may not be able to get a complaint registered by the police without adequate support from sympathisers or influential people.

"Indeed we do not have enough data on how many internal whistleblowers have made complaints about attacks on them to the police till date," he said.