Rs.5 lakh cash reward for information on Shehla murder

Source in the agency said despite being a broad daylight incident in a crowded locality, no eyewitness has come forward to give information about it.

"The informer giving reliable information about person(s) involved in the Shehla Masood murder which leads to their arrest will be rewarded with Rs 5 lakh by CBI. The identity of informer will be kept confidential," CBI spokesperson Dharini Mishra said.

The CBI is also looking for the murder weapon which has not yet been traced.
Sources said that the award amount might encourage the elusive eyewitness or people having some clue about the crime to come forward and share the information.

"It is strange that a woman who is an RTI activist is shot outside her home in broad daylight in a crowded locality yet no one has any knowledge about it. It may be that there is something that is holding people back from sharing information with the authorities," an official said.

On September 3, Bhopal unit of the agency registered a case in the murder of Masood after it was referred to it by the Madhya Pradesh Government.

Shehla was shot dead when she was going towards her car outside her residence in posh Koh-e-Fiza locality in Bhopal on August 16.

Madhya Pradesh Police could not figure out the motive but suspected she may have been eliminated by some powerful persons against whom she had filed RTI applications.
Shehla had earlier gone on a hunger strike in Bhopal in support of Anna Hazare's cause. She was also involved in other causes, including wildlife conservation.

Her father Sultan Masood had said he expected no justice, being a lower middle-class person, and did not think that police was probing the case sincerely.

He had alleged that in January, Shehla had filed a complaint with the Lokayukta that she feared threat to her life from a senior IPS officer but no action was taken.