FIR filed against RTI activist in Gurugram

Gurugram: A city resident has accused an RTI activist named SK Sharma for threatening him to sell a piece of land and trying to extort Rs 5 lakh from him on the pretext of saving him from a government inquiry for allegedly acquiring more than one Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) plot under a quota.

In a statement to police, the resident has claimed that S K Sharma had collected information about the plot owned by him through an RTI query.

Sharma had then approached the complainant's house and started enquiring about him, but he was away at work and could not meet him.

The man later approached Sharma in his house in May this year.

"When I met him, he told me I had taken more than one government plot under the quota and he could help me sell it off if I paid him Rs 5 lakh," said the

complainant.

He added that the accused also told him that if he didn't agree to the proposal, he would have to make rounds of courts and his wife could lose her job. Sharma had allegedly been calling and harassing the complainant and his family ever since and forcing them to sell the land.

"He also told us he knew senior officers in the police and judiciary and any complaints against him would only be a waste of time," the complainant said.

The accused used his influence in the police force to threaten the man, he claimed. An FIR has been registered at Sector 10 police station under Section 386 of the IPC, about "extortion by putting a person in fear of death".

This is not the first such complaint against Sharma. Earlier too, a similar complaint had been filed against the RTI activist not only at Gurugram but also in police stations of Delhi.