RAIPUR: A confrontational situation between the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government seems to be emerging following the state asking the union home ministry to reconsider the decision on handing over the probe into the killing of BJP MLA Bheema Mandavi by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
In a recent order, the union home ministry said the NIA will investigate into the Maoist attack that killed the MLA after the case has been registered by it under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Arms Act and UA(P) Act 1967.
Barely two days before the first phase of polling in Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP MLA and four policemen were killed in a powerful IED blast triggered by the Naxals at Dantewada on April 9.
“The case is being investigated by us, we already accomplished much of it and the process now remains in advance stage. So the state home department has written to the Centre (home ministry) to reconsider the decision of asking the NIA to initiate a probe into it”, the Chhattisgarh Director General of Police D M Awasthi told the Express.
The Bhupesh Baghel government has also ordered a judicial probe into the Dantewada incident. The state BJP suspecting the killing of it MLA as conspiracy had earlier demanded a CBI probe into it. “Why the BJP doesn’t trust the judicial inquiry and suspects the government’s intention”, the Congress spokesperson Shailesh Nitin Trivedi said.
Meanwhile, the Chhattisgarh government continues to wait for the NIA investigation report on Jhiram attack. The NIA has so far not responded to the request sent by the state in January this year to share its probe report on the audacious Maoist attack on Congress convoy at Jhiram valley (Bastar) in 2013.
“We haven’t received anything from the NIA so far though the state has already written for it twice”, the DGP stated.
The chief minister Bhupesh Baghel cited a “no response” so far from the investigating agency as “mysterious”. “What is preventing them to act (send)?”, he asked.
The state intends to hand over the NIA report on Jhiram to a 10-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) that the Congress government has constituted to further pursue the case. The SIT is headed by the Bastar inspector general of police Vivekanand Sinha.
The seven districts in the conflict zone of Bastar in south Chhattisgarh continue to be worst Maoist-affected.