Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday said she was ready for a CBI probe into the murder of PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta, but only if the agency also probed a dozen other cases she had already recommended.
She added, however, that the CBI had little credibility left and the demand for a
CBI probe was itself politically motivated. “The state police have already taken all the required steps to book the culprits,” she said.
Gupta was taken from his home in Auraiyya town and tortured to death on Tuesday, allegedly by close associates of Shekhar Tiwari, local BSP MLA, for resisting Tiwari’s extortion attempts. Funds were allegedly being collected for Mayawati’s birthday bash on January 15.
Tiwari was arrested under the National Security Act and the Gangster Act on Thursday.
“Why does the CBI pick and choose its investigations?” Mayawati asked, reiterating her demand for a CBI probe into the police recruitment scam during the rein of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Paswan allegation
Meanwhile, Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan alleged at a news conference in Delhi that a party activist in Agra had also been killed by the BSP when he refused to donate Rs. 2 lakh to Mayawati’s birthday celebrations.
He said LJP youth wing’s district president Manish Yadav was murdered by three BSP workers — Sanju, Monu and Sonu Pandit — on Friday. Police sources, however, said Yadav was killed when one of his companions shot at him during a drunken brawl.
In a separate incident, a BSP leader in Kanpur, Sarvesh Pal, pradhan of Gadera village, shot dead his nephew in a family feud.
(With inputs from Srinand Jha & Agencies)