Crusaders against Corruption and the price they paid for it – India

25 aug 2011

Crusaders against Corruption and the price they paid for it

 

Navleen Kumar

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

 

54-year old tribal rights activist Navleen Kumar from Maharashtra had been waging a decade-long battle to protect the rights of Adivasis in Thane district, through legal interventions in different courts. Her unrelenting crusade to restore their lands illegitimately or unjustly acquired by real estate developers in pockets such as Nallasopara, Virar and Vasai had earned her numerous threats. On June 19 2002, Navleen was brutally attacked inside her Mumbai apartment complex by armed men and eventually succumbed to her injuries. The assault was ascribed to the Bhai Thakur gang – a key player among the land mafia in the region – which, incidentally, was also reported to be behind the murder of her journalist husband, Murali Kumar a few years earlier.

Satyendra Dubey

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

An alumnus of the prestigious IIT Kanpur, Satyendra Dubey was just another smart engineer working as project director with the National Highways Authority of India on the government’s pet Golden Quadrilateral highway construction project. Unlike others in his league, however, he refused to turn a blind eye to what was going on around him. Known for his dogged resistance in the face of corrupt practices within the system and bold early measures to stem those, Dubey did not earn too many well-wishers along the way. Finally, aware of high level corruption in the project, he wrote a special letter to the Prime Minister, detailing the various malpractices in sub-contracting, quality control and the massive ‘loot of public money’ within the project. The letter, despite his pleas for secrecy, got leaked through bureaucratic channels. In November 2003, Satyendra Dubey was shot dead by unknown assailants in Gaya. While it was made to look like a simple robbery, several turns and developments during the investigation clearly pointed to the involvement of those with vested interests in the murder.

Manjunath Shanmugham

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

An engineer and MBA, Manjunath Shanmugham joined the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. as a Sales Officer in the Lakhimpur Kheri region of UP. Manjunath soon became exposed to the widely prevalent practice of fuel adulteration in the region and had two pumps sealed in 2005. When one of these became operational again within a month, the young idealist officer decided to conduct a surprise raid in November 2005. On the same night, his bullet-riddled body was found from the back seat of his own car – being driven by employees of the pump, who in connivance with pump-owner Pawan Kumar (Monu) Mittal had beaten and shot him.

Satish Shetty

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

In January 2010, 38-year old Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty was taking his usual morning walk when he was assaulted by a group of unidentified men and fatally injured. Shetty, touted by many as a systematic whistleblower, was known for his exposé of innumerable land scams in and around the Talegaon region along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Talegaon and surrounding areas had witnessed a spurt in construction activity and Shetty’s efforts had thrown light on several cases of land grabbing by developers and illegal construction.

Naina Kathpalia

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

In January 2010 again, intruders barged into the Mumbai apartment complex where activist Naina Kathpalia resides and open fired with a country-made revolver just as Nayana’s domestic help opened the grilled door of her first-floor residence. Fortunately, the bullets missed her and the panicked assailant fled. 65-year-old Nayana – co-convenor of the NGO Citispace that fights for open spaces and slum rehabilitation issues within Mumbai – was involved in various campaigns and had filed various cases pending with the Bombay high court. Incidentally, she was not the only one from the NGO to have been targeted, as convenor Neera Punj had also received threats to her life.

Murugan

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

In September 2010, Murugan, Assistant Quality Control Inspector in the State Civil Supplies Corporation, was allegedly killed in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for exposing a scam wherein expensive pulses were being smuggled out and replaced by cheap varieties in ration shops. Initially billed as a suicide, the case won media attention when the Madras High Court ordered a repeat post mortem on the body following his wife’s hunger strike demanding justice. She suspected foul play in view of her husband’s role in exposing corrupt practices among higher colleagues in his division and the earlier threats to his life.

Sonaullah Zargar

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

In January 2011, 30-year old Sonaullah Zargar was found dead near a stream in the Budgam district of Kashmir valley where he was known for his active campaigning against timber smuggling in the forests of Sukhnag. His family and neighbours rejected the initial premise that he had drowned and insisted that he had been killed for blowing the lid off the unholy nexus between forest officials and a powerful timber mafia in the region. Investigations did indeed confirm the allegations and eventually, the Block Forest Officer Abdul Gani War and three timber smugglers were arrested by the police.

Niyamat Ansari

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

On 20th February, 2011, Niyamat Ansari – a tireless crusader for the rights of workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in the Latehar district of Jharkhand – exposed the embezzlement of substantial amounts of NREGA funds in Rankikala Gram Panchayat by Kailash Sahu, a former BDO. Eventually, more than two lakhs of rupees were recovered from the accused and his accomplice, the Panchayat Sevak of Rankikala. While Sahu and the Panchayat Sevak were the open faces of the prevalent corruption, there were strong indications of the involvement of a corrupt contractor in the region, Shankar Dubey. On the evening of March 2, Ansari was picked up from his house by a group of men suspected to be Dubey’s goons and beaten mercilessly. He later succumbed to his injuries.

Baghu Dewani

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

The dangers of seeking information confirming corruption under the Right to Information Act was made evident once again in June 2011, when advocate-turned-activist Baghu Dewani was stabbed in Porbandar, Gujarat. Baghu had filed applications to dig out the truth behind two allegedly illegal constructions coming up in the town. Both projects are known to be patronised by the relatives of an influential local political leader, who is involved in mining and construction businesses in and around the city. Interestingly, the police have underplayed the involvement of the politician and have only filed an FIR against “unknown persons.”

Shehla Masood

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On August 16, 2011 as the entire nation was coming together to condemn the detention of Anna Hazare, Bhopal-based social activist Shehla Masood was shot dead in her car by an unidentified gunman outside her residence. Shehla was known to be campaigning for various causes ranging from governance related issues, women and minorities’ rights, wildlife conservation to RTI and corruption-related issues. Investigations into her murder are still on and the motive behind the killing is still to emerge clearly, but early findings suggest she may have been silenced for raising a voice against violations in a diamond mining project by a giant corporate group in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. In a letter written to Union Environmental Minister Jayanti Natrajan, Shehla had said she was corroborating facts pointing to the collusion of the collector of Chhatarpur in illegal mining by the company.