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NEWS ALERTS | A database of RTI martyrs in the pipeline
A database of RTI martyrs in the pipeline

A database of RTI martyrs in the pipeline

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published Published on Jul 23, 2015   modified Modified on Nov 14, 2021

A long-pending demand of civil society activists and NGOs, who are campaigning for probity, accountability, and transparency in public life, is going to be fulfilled soon.

A welcome move has been made by the Government to enumerate and publish data on crimes committed against media persons, Right to Information activists, and whistleblowers in the forthcoming edition of Crime in India, which is published annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of Ministry of Home Affairs.

The NCRB has recently circulated a new template for states, Union Territories (UTs), and cities so as to collect information on crimes against media persons, whistleblowers, and RTI/ social activists.

It needs to be mentioned here that attacks on media persons, whistleblowers and RTI/ social activists will fall under Section 325, Section 326, Section 326A, and Section 326B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if the latest template is used for data collection from local police stations of various states/ UTs.

In the past, seeing the rise in attacks on RTI activists and whistleblowers, parliamentarians had requested information about such incidents. However, the Government often replied that such data is not collected centrally. Due to the dearth of official statistics on attacks made on RTI activists and whistleblowers, people usually rely on the wikipedia page for seeking information regarding the number and nature of such incidents.   

Venkatesh Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Delhi, while welcoming the new initiative by NCRB, has argued that if an RTI activist or a whistleblower is murdered, the crime committed will be counted in the larger category of ‘murders’ (under Section 302 & 303 of IPC), which gives no breakups regarding the identity of dead victims. In such cases, it will be impossible to assess whether the murdered victim of an attack has been a media person, RTI activist, or whistleblower.

In other words, as long as the victim of an attack is alive, the professional identity of the person will be enumerated/ captured via the new template, which has been disseminated.

There is doubt regarding how the police officials present at local police stations would identify and categorize victims of attacks as RTI activists, social activists, and whistleblowers.  

References:

 

Crime in India (various years), National Crime Records Bureau, please click here to access 
 
Attacks on RTI activists in India, Wikipedia page, please click here to access

Police officials recording complaints of crime statistics must be trained to identify attacks on activists, whistleblowers -Venkatesh Nayak, Counterview.org, 22 July, 2015, please click here to access

Cost of filing RTI with police in Gujarat: Activist-journalist Shailesh Patel "murdered" by bootleggers -Pankti Jog, Counterview.org, 20 June, 2015, please click here to access
  
Amendment to whistleblower protection law sparks outrage among civil society activists -Nidhi Sharma, The Economic Times, 16 May, 2015, please click here to access
 
If amendments to Whistleblowers Act are passed, there may be no one left to protect -Aarefa Johari, Scroll.in, 14 May, 2015, please click here to access
 
It may be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than to get an inquiry launched into whistleblower complaint -Venkatesh Nayak, Counterview.org, 12 May, 2015, please click here to access
 
 
Image Courtesy: Shambhu Ghatak


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