Anna Hazare fasts at Jantar Mantar

New Delhi, Mar.25 (ANI): Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare on Sunday said that releatives of whistleblowers who had died while performing their duties, were crying out for justice, and declared the UPA-II regime as an entity that has been both deaf and dumb to their plea.

He said that it was a sad state of affairs that so many people had sacrificed their lives while fighting corruption and the government was still to conduct any probe despite some incidents happening more than three years ago.

"Their (whistleblowers') mothers, their children, their fathers, their wives are crying for justice. But this government has gone dumb and deaf. It is not listening to the cries of people. There will be a big struggle. Then, the government will listen. The government came up with MNREGA, but these people were killed for trying to improve it," Hazare told media.

This is the fifth time that 74-year-old Hazare is sitting on a fast in the past one year. Four of these five fasts have been held in Delhi.

Former Karnataka Lokayukta and Team Anna member Santosh Hegde, who had expressed some reservations with regard to the Team recently, was present along with other members like Shanti Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia.

"Hazare has invited several families to be a part of one-day fast for a stronger whistleblower protection mechanism under the Jan Lokpal Bill," a Team Anna member said.

At least 15 people, who tried to blow the lid on scams or fought the menace of corruption in other ways, have been killed since 2010, according to Team Anna. hese killings have brought to fore the need for a strong whistleblowers' protection system, under control of Jan Lokpal and Jan Lokayukta, it has said. (ANI)

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