On July 20th two unidentified men rode up to Amit Jethwa on a motorcycyle as he was coming out of his office in Ahmedabad and shot him dead at point blank range. Jethwa had recently filed a petition against illegal logging in the Gir Forest, the last home of the Asiatic lion, a subspecies of the African lion listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List.
Jethwa was pursuing action against illegal logging through the Right to Information Act in India, which allows any citizen to request information from a public authority. It is rumored that the illegal mining in Gir Forest had ties to politicians. The father of Amit Jethwa has accused an MP of being behind Jethwa’s murder.
Jethwa was also the creator and head of the Gir Nature Youth Club, which focused on working with local youth to preserve the forest and its famous lions.
This is not the first time a citizen employing the Right to Information Act in India has been murdered. Five other RTI activists, as they are known in India, have been killed.
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