Bhagalpur, March 7: The recent murder of an RTI activist at Lohochi has put a village head and a senior police officer in a spot with the victim’s kin holding the duo allegedly responsible for the crime.

Murlidhar Jaiswal, the RTI activist who was also a registered medical practitioner, was murdered on March 4 at Lohochi in the Haveli Kharagpur area on Bariarpur-Haveli Kharaghpur road.

Jaiswal was shot dead by some unidentified criminals. Three days have passed since then, but the police have not been able to make any arrest.

Today, some relatives of the slain activist submitted a memorandum to Munger superintendent of police P. Kanna, seeking arrest of the culprits involved in Jaiswal’s murder.

They alleged that the mukhiya of Naki panchayat, Sabita Devi, and Haveli Kharaghpur deputy super-intendent of police (DSP) K. Chandra had masterminded the murder.

“The DSP had earlier compelled Jaiswal to join hands with Sabita Devi. Now he is putting pressure on us to withdraw the case,” a member in the activist’s family said on condition of anonymity.

Hariom, the victim’s son, demanded a high-level inquiry into the murder. “My father had tried to expose mis-utilisation of government funds meant for old-age pension in the sub-division. He tried to use the Right to Information as a weapon to expose corruption,” he added.

Hariom said Jaiswal had last year informed a senior government official in Munger about fake beneficiaries enjoying old-age pension benefits. He added that the official concerned had detected 43 such cases in the Naki panchayat area. “Following this, my father got into a confrontation with Sabita Devi,” Hariom said. He also accused the DSP of implicating his activist father in a false case last year.

Following this, the activist had approached deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who instructed senior cops to conduct an inquiry.

Accordingly, the deputy inspector-general of police (DIG) of Munger, Anil Kishore Yadav, asked the superintendent of police to probe into the case. “The SP conducted an investigation and found the case against Jaiswal false. He gave him a clean chit,” a relative of the activist said.

The DIG today told The Telegraph that investigation into the murder of the activist was on and the culprits would be arrested and punished. Chandra and Sabita Devi were, however, not available for comments.