Mid-Day: Mumbai: Tuesday, August 21, 2018.
RTI activists
claim BMC has shared their addresses and numbers with the very same influential
builders they had complained about.
A day after
mid-day reported how BMC chief Ajoy Mehta was left red-faced after RTI
activists sent him a list of corrupt civic officials, the social crusaders were
allegedly bombarded with calls offering bribes to withdraw their complaints
against illegal constructions. The activists alleged that municipal officials
had leaked their contact numbers in a bid to trap them in corruption cases.
"A day
after mid-day published the news, I started getting calls from unknown numbers.
One of the callers told me that a P-north ward official had given my number to
him. He offered a bribe to settle the complaint I had lodged with the BMC, but
I refused and disconnected the call," recalled Mohammed Imran Shaikh, a
whistle-blower who had featured in mid-day's report on the activist-BMC feud on
August 16.
"Since
Ajoy Mehta was appointed as the municipal commissioner, he always tried to
humiliate activists rather than taking action on their complaints," added
Shaikh. This paper reported how the civic chief ordered officials to draw up a
list of activists who frequently used the Right To Information (RTI) Act to
lodge complaints against builders and contractors, indicating that they were
attempting to extort money from the developers.
'Who
leaked our info?'
The RTI
crusaders retaliated with a tongue-in-cheek list of 100-odd civic officials
caught by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) during Mehta's tenure. Now, they
have alleged that the red-faced BMC is trying to frame them for corruption, by
leaking their numbers to the builders they had complained against.
"When we
filed the complaint with BMC officials, how did the builders get our names and
numbers? And if civic officials are claiming extortion, they can easily impede
any bribery by quickly taking action on genuine complaints," added Shaikh,
who has repeatedly complained about a chawl being built at ward number 33 in
Malwani, Malad (P-north ward). After his complaint, it was demolished on August
2, but was up again in a matter of days (see pics).
"Being
an activist, I expose various illegal and unauthorised rampant constructions,
which are regularly carried out by slumlords and land grabbers in collusion
with officials of BMC and the deputy collector's office. I was left with no
choice but to file a public interest litigation, in which the court had also
passed an order in September 2016," said Shaikh, who has since submitted
an e-complaint with the Mumbai Police, as well as a written complaint to the
Malwani police station and police commissioner.
Non-stop
calls, texts
Another
activist, Jamal Shaikh, said he was offered R40,000 to drop his complaint.
"I received messages from an unknown number, offering R40,000 to settle
the matter. I immediately blocked that number and sent a written complaint to
the Anti-Corruption Bureau as well as Mumbai Police Commissioner. I have
appealed for an FIR to be registered in the matter against the BMC
officials."
A third
activist, Sanjay Singh, has also been bombarded with calls from unknown
numbers. "I do not pick up such calls anyway, but since we spoke out
against the BMC, I have got even more from unknown numbers this week, to settle
complaints that I have no memory of," added Singh, president of the Lok
Vasundhara Samiti.
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