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‘Deprived of justice’: Mesta’s father meets Bommai, seeks reinvestigation
Mesta’s body was recovered from a pond “under mysterious circumstances” in Honnavar in Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district on December 6, 2017, soon after which communal riots broke out in the area.
Days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitted a closure report in connection with the death of Paresh Mesta,18, reiterating it as an “accident”, his father Kamalakar Mesta on Thursday approached Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai demanding a reinvestigation.
Mesta’s body was recovered from a pond “under mysterious circumstances” in Honnavar in Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district on December 6, 2017, soon after which communal riots broke out in the area.
During the meeting, Mesta’s father told the chief minister that his son’s death was “unnatural”. “The CBI has submitted a B report stating that there is a lack of evidence depriving me of justice. Four months had elapsed since the case was handed over to the CBI and the evidence was destroyed. As there is a need for more detailed investigations, the CBI should be directed to reinvestigate the case. It was an unnatural death,” he told the media.
In the report submitted before a local court on Monday in Honnavar, the CBI stated: “Mesta died after slipping into a pond while trying to run away from a communal clash”. The court will pronounce the verdict in the case on November 16.
The CBI filed a closure report in connection with Mesta’s death five years after the incident in 2022.
The CBI’s B report has termed the death as an accident, citing the post-mortem and forensic reports. The B report also cites the non-availability of evidence to corroborate the murder accusation made in the first information report (FIR).
The chief minister’s office (CMO) confirmed that a meeting was held and also released the photos of the meeting. “The chief minister assured him that suitable action will be taken regarding the reinvestigation of the case,” a statement from the CMO read.
The Congress, however, reiterated that they have set 15-day deadline for BJP leaders “to be booked for misleading the CBI investigation with false information on the death of Mesta. “Shobha Karandlaje, K S Eshwarappa, C T Ravi, Nalin Kumar Kateel and Anantkumar Hegde have spread fake news about the death and they should be booked for spreading false information on his death. If no action is taken, we will resort to legal route,” KPCC communications chief Priyank Kharge said.
The CBI had written a letter to Mesta’s family in October first week stating that the probe had established that his death was an accident. “During the investigation, no incriminating evidence has emerged showing the involvement of accused persons and the medico-legal evidence/opinion collected from multiple institutions clearly established the cause of death of Paresh Mesta as anti-mortem drowning. Accordingly, a final report (closure report) is being filed before the jurisdictional court,” read the letter.
Over the years, Mesta had become the face of Hindutva politics for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the 2018 elections. The BJP which was in Opposition in Karnataka at the time had claimed that it “was a communal murder of a Sangh Parivar worker by a Muslim gang”.
In the days following the murder BJP’s Udupi-Chikkamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje had claimed that “hot oil was poured on his body resulting in the body turning black” and had alleged that the murder was carried out by “jihadi elements”. She also claimed that a “Shivaji tattoo was removed from Mesta’s body by ripping his skin away”.
The case was handed over to the CBI by the then Congress government headed by Siddaramaiah 10 days after the death amid the allegations. According to an officer who supervised the case in 2017, “Mesta died while running away from a communal tension triggered by a road accident between a Muslim motorcyclist and a Hindu auto-rickshaw driver”
