Govt: Pansare murder probe to stay with SIT

MUMBAI: The state government yesterday told the Bombay High Court that the Special Investigations Team (SIT) will continue investigating the murder of rationalist

MUMBAI: The state government yesterday told the Bombay High Court that the Special Investigations Team (SIT) will continue investigating the murder of rationalist and CPI leader Govind Pansare and the case will not be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

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The government’s reply came after Pansare’s kin expressed an apprehension of a likely transfer of probe.

The family’s lawyer, Abhay Nevagi, told HC that the Chief Minister’s Office had recently issued a letter to the Crime Investigations Department (CID) saying it would allow CBI to take up the probe.

An HC bench, headed by Justice SC Dharmadhikari, was hearing a plea filed by the kin of murdered rationalists Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar asking the court to monitor the probe in both case.

The court too told the families that HC will not “allow for any change of guard” and that the CMO was “no one to allow the transfer”.

In a previous hearing on June 23, the bench had directed the state to inform the court before transferring the probe to another agency.

On Thursday, the bench also asked both the CBI and the SIT to not give excuses like “bureaucratic or hierarchal hurdles” and get the ballistics report from the Scotland Yard and all other documents in the Dabholkar and Pansare murders respectively.