Karnataka CM says SIT probing Dharmasthala case, downplays demand for NIA probe
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday downplayed calls for a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into allegations of multiple murders, rapes and burials in Dharmasthala, saying the case is already being investigated by the state police through a Special Investigating Team (SIT).
The chief minister was responding to questions about Hindu and Jain seers meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking an NIA probe into the case.
“We have constituted SIT, they are police. Who is in NIA? They too are police,” Siddaramaiah told reporters.
The opposition BJP and JD(S) have also demanded an NIA probe, targeting the Congress government over its handling of the case.
They alleged a conspiracy behind the “smear campaign” against Dharmasthala and the local Hindu temple.
The controversy erupted after a complainant, later identified as C N Chinnaiah and arrested on charges of perjury, claimed to have buried several bodies, including women showing signs of sexual assault, in Dharmasthala over the past two decades, with implications pointing to the administrators of the local temple.
The SIT, tasked by the state government to probe the allegations, has conducted search operations and digs at multiple locations identified by the complainant in forested areas along the banks of the Netravathi River, where skeletal remains were recovered at two sites.
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West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee moves SC against SIR
New Delhi (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state, sources said on Sunday.
The petition names the Election Commission (EC) and the chief electoral officer of West Bengal as respondents. It was filed before the apex court on January 28, the sources said.
Banerjee arrived in Delhi on Sunday. She is scheduled to meet Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar at 4 pm on Monday to discuss the ongoing SIR exercise in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo would be accompanied by a delegation of party leaders.
She is also likely to meet party MPs in the Parliament House on Monday.
Talking to reporters at the Kolkata airport before leaving for the national capital, Banerjee claimed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre is resorting to the SIR exercise because it is certain of its imminent defeat in the West Bengal Assembly polls, due in a few months, and said the saffron party should contest the election politically and democratically.
The West Bengal chief minister has written several letters to the CEC, raising concerns over the conduct of the exercise.
In her most recent letter to the CEC on January 31, she alleged that the methodology and approach of the exercise went beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the relevant rules, causing "immense inconvenience and agony" to citizens.
Earlier, TMC leaders, including Rajya Sabha MPs Derek O'Brien and Dola Sen, had moved the apex court, challenging certain aspects of how the SIR is being carried out in West Bengal.
