Rajasthan Shocker: In a shocking incident, two men in Rajasthan sought answers under RTI regarding the development projects in their village, but instead what they got were the mysterious parcel which had sealed packets of used contraceptives. The petitioners Vikas Choudhary and Manohar Lal were in for a nasty shock after they received used condoms wrapped in an old newspaper as a “reply” to their RTI query. Both are the residents of Chani Badi in Bhadra tehsil of Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan who had filed under two separate applications under the right to information act (RTI) with the gram panchayat on April 16 last year.

The Right To Information Act mandates that the reply be furnished within 30 days but the petitioners said that the response had come only recently. They also said the reply was sent by the village panchayat on the orders of the state information commission.

Among the two, Choudhary was the first person to receive a response. Apprehensive over the content of the other envelope, he and Lal called the Block Development Officer (BDO) to their village so that he can also see what was in the other packet, Chaudhary said. However, the BDO declined to visit them, following which they opened the packet in the presence of other villagers and filmed the incident, Chaudhary said. The other packet also contained used contraceptives packed in a newspaper, he added.

Navneet Kumar, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Hanumangarh Zila Parishad told IANS that an investigation had been conducted to get to the bottom of the matter, adding that it could be the outcome of rivalry between two groups in the village. The sarpanch of the village implied that the petitioners could have mailed the condoms to themselves.

Kumar said there a was rivalry between two groups in the village who are trying to downplay each other, alluding that this time, they had resorted to newer means to garner more attention.

(With inputs from IANS)