Bihar: Abducted journalist-RTI activist found dead in Madhubani

MADHUBANI/PATNA: Police recovered the charred body of kidnapped RTI activist, Buddhi Nath Jha alias Avinash Jha (23), from a bush between Urain and Pali villages under the Benipatti police station area in Madhubani district on Friday night.
Jha, who was also a web portal reporter, had been kidnapped by four men near his house at Lohia Chowk on November 9 night. His body was handed over to the family after autopsy on Saturday.
His brother Chandra Shekhar had lodged an FIR suspecting that Jha was kidnapped by those illegal healthcare clinic owners whom he had exposed, the police said.
Jha had filed RTI applications and reportedly written articles on his web portal against illegal and unauthorised clinics, hospitals and healthcare establishments in his area. He had even submitted several petitions to Madhubani DM against such establishments running without any licence after which many of them were either shut by the administration or fined, police sources said.
When asked, Benipatti SDPO Arun Kumar Singh on Saturday told this newspaper that raids were on to nab those involved in Jha’s killing.
A police officer from Madhubani said Jha was strangled. “It was revealed in the postmortem. The body was identified by family members on the basis of a ring he had in one of his fingers, a mole in his leg and charred remains of his red shirt which he had been wearing on November 9,” he said.
The officer said it seems he was murdered somewhere else and the criminals burned his body there as the grass and bushes were also charred.
The officer said two persons, including the one who runs a private clinic, had been detained for interrogation on Saturday. “Prima facie we suspect that Jha was murdered due to his RTI activities which had resulted in action against several private clinics in Benipatti,” the officer said.