NHRC notices to the Chief Secretary and DGP, Maharashtra over an RTI activist's suicide under pressure of public authorities in Pune (15.4.2014)
PRESS RELEASE
New Delhi, 15th April, 2014
The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report that an RTI activist named Vilas Dattatrey Baravakar, aged 53 years, committed suicide and was found hanging at his residence in Chakan, Pune on the 25th March, 2014 leaving behind a suicide note alleging that several prominent politician and top serving and retired officers of Indian Police Service in Maharashtra were harassing him. Reportedly, in the suicide note, he has named several persons who he said were harassing him for long.
A day before his suicide, Vilas Dattatrey Baravakar had gone to Khed Tehsildar Officer in connection with his work and after returning to his house in the evening he had asked his guard Suresh Jadhav, a police constable, to go back to police station. He had written the suicide note on a stamp paper of Rs.100.
Issuing notices to the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, Government of Maharashtra, calling for a report in the matter within two weeks, the Commission has observed that the contents of the report, if true, raise a serious issue of violation of human rights of an RTI activist.
*****
New Delhi, 15th April, 2014
The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report that an RTI activist named Vilas Dattatrey Baravakar, aged 53 years, committed suicide and was found hanging at his residence in Chakan, Pune on the 25th March, 2014 leaving behind a suicide note alleging that several prominent politician and top serving and retired officers of Indian Police Service in Maharashtra were harassing him. Reportedly, in the suicide note, he has named several persons who he said were harassing him for long.
A day before his suicide, Vilas Dattatrey Baravakar had gone to Khed Tehsildar Officer in connection with his work and after returning to his house in the evening he had asked his guard Suresh Jadhav, a police constable, to go back to police station. He had written the suicide note on a stamp paper of Rs.100.
Issuing notices to the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, Government of Maharashtra, calling for a report in the matter within two weeks, the Commission has observed that the contents of the report, if true, raise a serious issue of violation of human rights of an RTI activist.
*****