The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday denied reports that it had submitted an interim report to the Home Ministry of its probe into the the Maoist attack on a Congress convoy in south Chhattisgarh.
In a press release, the agency headquarters claimed that the “investigation is in [its] initial stage” and the Home Ministry had not asked for any report.
The media in Chhattisgarh have been claiming that the NIA had submitted an interim report in which it suggests that “…four Congress leaders were in touch with insurgents”.
Earlier, the Chhattisgarh police too told The Hindu that such reports were purely “speculative”.
Heavily-armed Maoists ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders in the State’s Bastar district on May 25, killing 26 people including State Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son, Congress leader Mahendra Karma and ex-MLA Uday Mudliyar and injuring 30 others. The case was almost immediately handed over to the NIA.
The press note said: “It is clarified that no such report has been submitted by the NIA. The investigation is in the initial stages and no report has been called for by the Ministry of Home Affairs in this regard.”
A major national daily had on Monday quoted the agency, the UNI, and said, “…four Congress leaders were in touch with the insurgents and the Naxalites were given information regarding the change of tour of the leaders’ convoy.”
Earlier, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde too denied the existence of any such NIA report.
However, the BJP has used such reports to run a strong campaign against the Congress and has, for the last few days, been demanding that narco-analysis test be conducted among Congress leaders who survived the attack.
