Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said the State government is ready for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the mysterious death of Jishnu Pranoy, first year B.Tech. student found hanging in a hostel of the Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre, Pambady, in Thrissur, in January.
Mr. Vijayan told journalist here on Tuesday that Jishnu's father K.P. Ashokan had met him and that ‘‘he had requested that the case be handed over to the CBI.” The government had no objection to the CBI taking over the case and that this was informed to Mr. Ashokan and to the State Police Chief (SPC), he said.
Mr. Ashokan had already given a memorandum to SPC T.P. Senkumar seeking a CBI probe into the death of his son.
A special police team that probed the death of Jishnu had arraigned Nehru College of Education and Charitable Trust chairman and managing trustee P. Krishna Das and four others, including the vice principal of the college, as accused in the case.
They have been charged with abetment of suicide, criminal conspiracy, forgery for the purpose of cheating, and causing hurt. However, Jishnu’s family had demanded that the police slap murder charges on the accused.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court had rejected the State government’s plea to cancel the anticipatory bail granted to Mr. Krishna Das. Vice principal N.K. Sakthivel was arrested from a farmhouse near Coimbatore by the Kerala police in April.
Regarding the bomb attack on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] district headquarters early on Friday, Mr. Vijayan said the motive behind the act was to kill party district secretary P. Mohanan.
Political parties should ensure that they do not violate the pact reached at an all-party peace meeting that they would not indulge in attacking party offices. The police would take stern action against those involved in rioting, the Chief Minister said.
