[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 11

[Rakesh Iyer]

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*Volume 25 - Issue 14 :: Jul. 05-18, 2008*
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU  *•*
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*CRIME*

* Murder and worse *

 VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
* in Ranchi *

 * The killing of Lalit Mehta raises disturbing questions about the future
of the fight against corruption that hampers development. *

   COURTESY: THE PUBLIC AGENDA

* Lalit Mehta with his two children, in Palamau. The Chief Minister has
ordered a CBI probe into his murder. *

“WE know the killers of Lalit Mehta and they will be brought to justice. We
will make the perpetrators of heinous crimes such as murder pay with their
lives. We have started the process for this and it will soon culminate in
strong and decisive action.” So says a leaflet circulated by the Communist
Party of India (Maoist) on June 22 in Chattarpur and adjoining areas of
Palamau district in Jharkhand. It even names a few Palamau-based contractors
who were involved in public works under the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) as suspects in the conspiracy to kill the social
activist Lalit Mehta. The leaflet further states that Mehta and his
associates were on the verge of exposing the rampant corruption practised by
the contractors and their colleagues in NREGS activities in the district.
This, it asserts, was the primary reason for the killing of Mehta in the
third week of May.

The leaflet did indeed create a flutter, not just in Chattarpur, where the
mutilated body of Lalit Mehta was found on May 14, and its adjoining areas
but also in Ranchi, the State capital.

Senior officials in the State administration and the police as well as a
number of social activists are a worried lot. They had not expected the
extremist CPI (Maoist) – or naxalites, as the party is referred to in common
parlance – to take an active interest in the Lalit Mehta case. Especially
since the paths of Mehta and the CPI (Maoist) were different.

Mehta, a 36-year-old engineer-turned-social-activist, was involved in
activities that sought to advance rural employment, basic health facilities,
right to food, and child rights. His organisational involvement was
essentially with foundations that had a Gandhian orientation and outlook.
Mehta was a full-time activist of the Right to Food Campaign and the Gram
Swaraj Abhiyan; he was also the secretary of the Vikas Sahyog Kendra (VSK),
a non-governmental organisation based in Palamau. The VSK, among other
things, was involved in the social audit of NREGS in different parts of the
district and sought to ensure better and transparent implementation of the
prestigious programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
The NREGS audit was guided by the noted development economist and activist
Jean Dreze.

The faltering of government and police officials in the murder investigation
could have provoked the naxalites to take an active interest in the matter.
The investigation by the local police was, right from the beginning,
indolent and raised suspicions that it was designed to protect the culprits.
When Mehta’s body was found near the Kandra jungles of Chattarpur, his bike,
Rs.12,000 in cash, his mobile phone and other documents were reported
missing.

The first reaction from the police, even before they started a formal probe,
was to highlight the loss of cash and other valuables and portray the murder
as a consequence of robbery. The fact that the murder took place just a day
after a team of NREGS volunteers from Delhi and elsewhere arrived in
Chainpur and Chhattarpur blocks of Palamau district was not considered at
all by the local police. This anomaly was pointed out by many social
activists including Manoj Kumar Singh, president of the VSK and a long-time
associate of Lalit Mehta.

Even when it was taken into consideration later, the reactions from the
local administration and the police were strange. The district
administration, in its first official report on the murder dated May 31,
rejected the linkage between the timing of the murder and the NREGS social
audit by Mehta and his associates.

The report, which was filed by Palamau District Commissioner Nagendra Prasad
Singh and Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar Verma, accused Dreze of
orchestrating a campaign to malign the district administration. It claimed
that Dreze and his team of social auditors were “creating an environment to
paint the Palamau administration, along with the Jharkhand government, as
deeply entrenched in corruption and suggesting that works under NREGS in all
districts of Jharkhand, including Palamau, are being done only on paper.”

The report also slammed a social audit, done by Dreze and his team, that
specifically pointed out to irregularity and corruption by two officials of
the Chattarpur block as an allegation “without substance”. It said that
Dreze and his team “took advantage of semi-literate tribal workers” and got
them to “sign on a complaint” that the two officials had taken a bribe of
Rs.4,500 in two instalments.

According to the report, the “substancelessness” of the charge was
established through an inquiry conducted by district officials. It claims
that it was found out during the inquiry that the workers had got proper
wages but Dreze and company misled the complainants who were semi-literate.
The report, referring to statements by Mehta’s brothers and wife, suggested
that the motive to murder Mehta could well have been monetary gain since
“Lalit Mehta played an important role in large sums of monetary
transactions” involving the VSK.

“Obviously,” pointed out Manoj Kumar Singh while talking to *Frontline*,
“there was a deliberate attempt to sidetrack the investigation and take its
focus away from the real culprits.” However, he added, the attempt had been
defeated to a large extent through committed action by a number of social
activists and politicians.

The report of the district administration evoked widespread condemnation and
many social activists – including Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor
Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Annie Raja of the Communist Party of India and
senior journalist Prabash Joshi – came together under the auspices of the
Daman Bhrashtachar Virodhi Samiti and initiated an agitation in Palamau.
Pressure was exerted in New Delhi, too, by a delegation of about 100 social
activists who met Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh
and sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.

The Minister endorsed the value of social audits and made it clear that his
Ministry was committed to protecting people and organisations associated
with them.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, too, took note of the events and said in a
message that the killing of Mehta “was engineered by vested interests that
were apprehensive of Lalit’s exposing their corrupt practices”.

All these pressures at the high level forced the Jharkhand government to
change tack. Chief Minister Madhu Koda recommended a CBI inquiry on June 18.
He admitted that this move was necessary because the Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) of the State police and the Palamau district administration
had not been able to make much headway in the case. “Though the CID probe,
which I had earlier ordered, was following the case very closely, I chose to
go for the CBI inquiry as a section of people had started suspecting the
role of the State police,” Koda said.

Lalit Mehta’s friends, relatives and associates perceived the announcement
of the CBI inquiry as a kind of victory in their struggles and expected a
speedy investigation.

However, the intimidating message from the naxalites – four days after the
announcement of the CBI probe – has added a new dimension to the sequence of
events. The consequences of this involvement are not predictable. There are
apprehensions that the atmosphere could be further vitiated by this.

In the meantime, VSK activists, in association with their colleagues who
have come from outside the district and even from outside the State, have
resumed the social audit that Lalit Mehta had to leave unfinished. “This is
our tribute to a dear colleague and it would continue irrespective of the
challenges that come in various forms and shapes,” Manoj Kumar Singh told *
Frontline*. He added that there was an environment of fear and tension,
constantly created by the nexus of local contractors, middlemen, bureaucrats
and politicians in activities relating to the NREGS and food supply under
the Public Distribution System (PDS). The VSK and its fraternal
organisations are determined not to succumb to any form of intimidation that
might come up against them while working in these areas. Clearly, Lalit
Mehta’s spirit is very much alive among his activist colleagues.

   * *

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