Shehla Masood murder: When MP was in news for wrong reasons

Bhopal, Dec 27: There wasn't much significant development on the political front in Madhya Pradesh in 2011 but the broad daylight murder of RTI activist Shehla Masood and police action on Bhopal gas tragedy protesters were blots on Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's copy book.

The emergence of Congress' Ajay Singh as the leader of the Opposition was considered important by political analysts. He is the son of late Congress leader Arjun Singh. The party also got a new president in tribal leader Kantilal Bhuria, who was a Union minister during the announcement and was later dropped from the Cabinet.

After assuming his post, Singh moved a no-confidence motion, the first against the BJP government since December 2003, and in his two-and-a-half-hour speech during the discussion he levelled a number of corruption charges against the Chouhan dispensation.

Shehla Masood was murdered in front of her house in the posh Koh-e-Fiza locality here on August 16 and till now there has been no clue about her killers. The activist was close to number of prominent BJP leaders but the CBI, investigating the case, has not found anything against them.

The 27th anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster turned ugly with police baton charging activists who were staging a rail roko in support of their demands. The activists claimed that they were beaten despite giving notice for the rail roko in advance.

PTI