It has become a self-evident reality and it has been playing out itself, that a person or a group which tries to done the garb of path-finders against the willed destruction of scruples, yet remain unseen stars for oppressed, they must know that they are walking on a double-edged sword.
Death of an RTI activist in the Kandhamal district of Odisha has perhaps not qualified itself to be an upmarket item to deserve the repeat headlines in news bulletins. But, it was no mere an incident to get buried in the gloom of the geographic isolation.
A man has been killed, a family has been ruined and a cause has lost its direction. When some miscreants came on a bike and sprayed bullets on Abhimanyu Panda and killed him.
Abhimanyu, as it has been told by the sources in Kandhamal, has been trying to blow the whistle on some unlawful activities in the area which includes several instances of corruption in various departments including a wine on-shop, all on the prowl in the area in connivance, allegedly, with the local leaders and officials.
No light at the end of the tunnel
The incident took place on December 10 last when Abhimanyu was attacked by the masked assailants in front his house. The local police has taken up the case. What has come out of the investigation is not known yet.
But a delegation of RTI activists that went to the place of the incident that, saw that there has been no headway by the police so far.
At a time when news bulletins get replete with crossfires on issues like CAA or NRC producing a high decibel debate all over, the life of an RTI activist like Abhimanyu got relegated to the lower rungs of priority, at best his death can only add a number more to the incidents of elimination of RTI activists in the country.
Police is, reportedly, trying to look into several angles those could have triggered such a murderous attack on Panda. As it appears, the chances of nailing the killers of Panda are far and few in between.
Blow not the whistle to invite bullets
The team of RTI activists, led by Pradip Pradhan, an RTI activist, which visited the Patrasahi village, the place of the occurrence under Baliguda police station, has given to understand that, very little may come out if the case is not probed by a Special task Force. Because, precedents show that, in last three years, over 30 RTI activists were attacked in Odisha which includes the deaths of Krupasindhu Sahu in Cuttack district and Ganesh Chandra Panda from Ganjam district.
In these interiors the tune of the corruption may be less in comparison to the ones in the big cities but, the symptoms and fatality of the disease are same and the intentions of the administrations are all the more same.
It is all about the political morality which is in the decay, and in this situation, an RTI activist or any whistle blower now reduces to become an oppressed one and we expect him or her to echo the voice of the oppressed.
