On 04 June 2019, 44 year old RTI activist M Sreenivas was travelling by motorbike along a road in Chodavaran, Visakhapatnam district when two men also on a motor bike pulled up alongside and started to attack him with an iron bar. He got off the bike and tried to defend himself while his wife who had been riding pillion ran for help. As she told police afterwards she never thought they would kill her husband.

M Sreenivas, also known by the nickname of Noodles Sreenu, was involved in a number of small businesses and was also well known as an RTI (Right to Information) activist. According to the police he had acquired a number of enemies because of his activism.

Police have since arrested 6 people for the killing including the men who carried out the killing and the man who organised and paid for it.

It is estimated that 84 RTI activists and whistleblowers have been killed since the RTI legislation was introduced in 2005. However this is reckoned to be an under-estimate given that the government does not maintain any official statistics on RTI related killings.