Delhi University Community Protested in Support of Missing Whistle-blower, Dr. Sunil Upadhyay.

A candle light march was organized on 18^th July 2014 at 6p.m. from Jubilee Hall to Arts Faculty Delhi University. More than 300 students, researchers and teaching faculty members participated in this protest demanding immediate action by Govt. of India in the case of “Missing Class-One Officer at Indian Museum”, Dr Sunil Upadhyay. Different media houses covered this protest. Dr Upadhyay is a Delhi University alumnus, a PhD and a former resident of Jubilee Hall, who has been working as Chief Conservation Officer at Indian Museum, Kolkata under Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India. Recently he has represented Govt. of India and delivered a talk on Swami Vivekananda in Chicago during celebration of 150^th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. As a researcher he was also working on documentation of Swami Vivekananda’s speech at Chicago. Dr Upadhyay is a most honest officer and has always been vocal against the wrongdoings taking place at the museum. He has been consistently raising concerns about safety of Museum’s precious artefacts and India’s priceless heritage.

On the evening of 3^rd July 2014, days after he shared concerns about some huge irregularities taking place at the museum he went missing from his residence in Kolkata. The local police are still clueless about his whereabouts and there has been absolutely no progress in this case in last 15 days.

His friends and family have reasons to suspect that there might be influential people involved in this case who feared that Dr Upadhyay might have exposed their racket of illicit trade of rare artefacts. We believe that an honest officer should not be paying with his life for speaking up against the corruption at government offices and hence an example should be made out of this case to prove the same. We appeal for an independent and immediate investigation in this matter by CBI.

We seek your support and request attention of your esteemed media house for wide coverage of this incident and help us in protecting an honest officer who is paying price for only doing his duties most honestly.