Even as the Madhya Pradesh government ordered a judicial probe into the alleged murder of IPS officer Narendra Kumar, the Opposition Congress demanded the resignations of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Home Minister Umashankar Gupta and Mining Minister Rajendra Shukla.
The Congress has also called a Statewide “bandh” to be observed on Tuesday and has demanded a CBI probe.
Meanwhile, an IPS officer Jaidevan was allegedly beaten up while trying to stop the illegal sale of liquor on Holi day, which is a “dry day”.
According to reports, Mr. Jaidevan, who is posted as Additional SP, Bhind, was beaten up by goons of local liquor barons and supporters of former BJP MLA Narendra Singh.
Earlier, Mr. Chouhan offered condolences to the family of the deceased officer and ordered a judicial probe into the matter. An official statement to this effect stated that the government had requested the High Court for a judge to initiate the probe.
IPS officer Narendra Kumar, posted as Sub-Divisional Officer of Police at Banmore, Morena, had been crushed to death on Thursday by a tractor allegedly carrying illegally quarried stones when the officer tried to apprehend the driver.
There have been conflicting statements coming from various sources about the death of Mr. Kumar.
While on Thursday, Chambal range DIG D.P. Gupta told reporters in Gwalior that “prima facie it appeared the mining mafia were behind the incident,” on Friday the government maintained that while all circumstances pointed to murder, the involvement of the mining mafia did not seem certain.
“The nature of the incident and the driver's knowledge that it could have resulted in a fatality clearly make a case for murder,” DGP Nandan Dube told The Hindu .
“However, the tractor belonged to the driver himself who also has a house under construction so he was probably stealing the stones for himself. But he has no criminal record and so we have yet not linked him to any organised mafia,” said Mr. Dube.
