Amit Jethwa, environmentalist and Right to Information (RTI) activist, was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle on Tuesday, July 20, 2010.
Amit was was well-known for defending environmental rights. Recently, he had started a campaign against forest encroachment in the protected Gir National park forest areas, which, is the only home of the Asiatic lion and a protected forest area in western India that covers more than 1,400 km sq. According to his family and friends, this action made him the target of various threats.
Just a few days before his murder, Amit had filed a lawsuit (public interest litigation). He named Dinu Solanki, at the moment a parliament member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as one of the parties involved in illegal limestone mining activities in the protected Gir Forest areas in Junagadh, Gujarat.
On Saturday, July 6, 2019, after almost 10 years of trials, Former BJP MP Dinu Bogha Solanki and six other men were convicted by a special CBI court for the murder of Amit.