NEW DELHI, MARCH 17 Murdered NHAI engineer Satyendra Kumar Dubey, who was killed after he complained of corruption in a Bihar stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral, has been nominated along with UK’s Iraq whistleblower Katharine Gun and two others, for the Index on Censorship’s prestigious Whistleblower of the Year Award. The winner — Dubey is the only posthumous nominee — will be announced on March 22 at a special awards ceremony in London’s City Hall.

Index on Censorship, an international magazine devoted to protecting and promoting free expression, instituted the Freedom of Expression Awards in 2000 to honour those who have made outstanding contributions to promotion of free expression and to draw attention to their work and circumstances.

It was The Indian Express that first uncovered Dubey’s letter to the Prime Minister’s Office and its coverage led to a public outcry after which the a CBI probe was ordered and the Prime Minister ensured the nation that the guilty would be punished ‘‘wherever they are.’’

Incidentally, the prime witness in the case has gone missing after being questioned by the CBI and two others questioned were found dead from poisoning.

Last week, the Supreme Court—on a PIL whose petitioners included Dubey’s father—issued notices to the Centre, CBI and the state on the need for a mechanism to protect whistleblowers.

In a statement today, Ursula Owen, Editor-in-Chief, Index on Censorship, said: ‘‘Our shortlisted candidates took huge professional and personal risks by blowing the whistle on the wrongdoings of their organisation, their profession, their government. One of them paid for this with his life.’’

Others nominated with Dubey are:

• UK’s Katharine Gun, cleared last month of charges under the Official Secrets Act for leaking a memo which suggested that the US wanted Britain to spy on key UN security council members as it tried to win approval for the war on Iraq;

• Uzbekistan’s Fatima Mukhadirova, sentenced to six years of hard labour for possessing unsanctioned religious literature. Mukhadirova spoke out on the torture and death of her son while in state custody;

• Ukraine’s Valeri Kravchenko, an intelligence officer who risked jail by publicly handing over a confidential dossier that he claims incriminates President Leonid Kuchma’s staff over spying on government and opposition ministers.