Just days after the kin of slain Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Govind Pansare moved the Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra government has announced the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the killing.
The team will comprise of police officers from Kolhapur, Sangli and Pune districts and would report directly to Sanjay Kumar, Additional Director-General of Police of the Pune-based State Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
According to sources, with the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party government under pressure to bring Mr. Pansare’s murderers to book, Mr. Kumar held a review meeting of the team on Wednesday in Kolhapur to discuss the need to streamline the investigation towards a definite conclusion.
So far, the policehave been unable to achieve any significant breakthrough in the 81-year-old activist’s shocking murder outside his house in February.
Last week, Mr. Pansare’s daughter Smita and daughter-in-law Megha filed an application before the court seeking an SIT probe under the supervision of the Bombay High Court.
Mr. Pansare’s kin do not expect a CBI investigation to yield results after the unsolved murder of Pune-based RTI activist Satish Shetty revealed the blatant political pressure on investigating officers; there has been no breakthrough yet in the 2010 murder.The CBI has similarly drawn a similar blank in the 2013 murder of rationalist Dr. Narendra Dabholkar in Pune with no arrests made till date.
