An RTI activist linked with the recent Lokayukta raid on a councillor was hacked to death as his horror-struck wife watched the murder from their first floor home in Vittalnagar in Chamarajpet here in the early hours of Tuesday.

Lingaraju (45) had come down around 6 a.m. as usual to fetch water from a nearby public tap when three armed men — all in their early 20s and their faces masked with woollen balaclavas — pounced on him, hacked him to death and disappeared in the bylanes. Chamarajpet police said that Lingaraju ran the now defunct Kannada tabloid, “Mahaprachanda”. He became a Right to Information (RTI) activist after it folded up.

Raid and calls

It is said that he started getting threatening calls after the Lokayukta raided the residence and other premises of a Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) councillor earlier this month.

He apparently bragged about how he had tipped off the sleuths about the councillor’s riches, even claiming that he had got a certificate of appreciation from the Lokayukta top brass. This proved costly, an investigation officer said and added that his wife suspected the hand of the councillor in the murder.

Five police teams have been formed to arrest the assailants.