An RTI activist was found dead in his burnt Chevy near Eldeco crossing in Greater Noida’s Sector Pi, police said on Friday. Chandra Mohan Sharma’s charred body was found inside his car on Thursday night after passersby informed the police that the vehicle caught fire.
Sharma was an employee at Honda and he was returning home to Alpha-II on Thursday night after duty, one of his relatives said. Sharma’s body was charred beyond recognition and his relatives identified the body on Friday, according to the police. His DNA and viscera samples have been sent to forensics.
Sharma’s relatives alleged he was murdered and demand a fair probe. They said he was getting threat calls from the mafia whose misdeeds he had exposed through RTI. Sharma had allegedly got a threat call two days earlier for uncovering illegal encroachment on a temple land in Kasna village. He had lodged a complaint at Kasna police chowki. “He was fighting the encroachers in the area. We had sought police protection but no action was initiated by the law enforcement agency. Now they are trying to twist a clear-cut homicide into a freak accident,” said Sabita Sharma, Chandra Mohan’s widow and AAP leader.
Contrary to police claim that the power windows were jammed shut when the car was a fireball, Sabita said her husband’s Chevy had no AC for the windows to be wound up in the first place. “My husband always drove his car with the windows down,” she said, pointing the finger of suspicion at three persons.
Sharma’s family members said this was the third such incident in the last six months in which an RTI activist has been targeted in Greater Noida. In December last year, RTI activist Anoop Singh was abducted from Dankaur town, singed with cigarette ends and flogged with iron rods before being dumped near a gas station in a neighbouring district four days later. In February, another activist, Salimuddin Solanki, had alleged he had been receiving threat calls from a contractor seeking information about the developmental work in the area.
Brajesh Kumar Singh, Superintendent of Police (Rural) of Greater Noida said they have registered a case. “Since Sharma was an activist who was in receipt of threat calls earlier, the incident is being investigated from all angles. CCTV footage of the area too is being scanned. We are taking the help of forensics to home in on the cause of death,” said the SP Rural.