The daylight murder of a Right to Information (RTI) activist, Ranjeet Soni, in Vidisha — nearly 60 km away from Bhopal, two days ago, has put the spotlight on the safety of activists in the State.
According to the police, 46-year-old Soni had gone to collect documents at the PWD office when he was shot in the head by contract killer Ankit Yadav alias Tunda. Tunda, it is alleged, was hired by three contractors, Ashokumar Choubey, Jaswant Raghuvanshi and Naresh Sharma.
The victim himself was a contractor and both sides had filed cases against each other, the police further added. Soni was gunned down a day before he was to appear for a court hearing in one such case — a cheque bounce matter in which Raghuvanshi was the complainant and Soni the accused. In a separate incident, Soni and Choubey had accused each other of assault and had cross-FIRs filed in 2017.
