Patna: The Bihar government on Monday night recommended a CBI probe into the May 13 killing of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan, bowing to the wishes of his family and mounting outrage over the incident, but Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rejected opposition’s charge that ‘jungle raj’ was prevailing in the state.
State’s Home department issued a notification in this regard, a Chief Minister’s Secretariat official said. As per the notification, the state government has requested the CBI to take over the investigation of the murder case.
Earlier, speaking on the issue Bihar DGP P.K. Thakur said that “We are still investigating the murder incident so we cannot reveal much about the case”.
He also spoke about special branch receiving information about a hit list which was prepared by Shahbuddin in the year 2014. He said the authenticity of the list was under question as the caller did not reveal his identification.
“We could not verify the information as the list was not provided to the police. The caller had said that two persons who figured in the list were murdered but the third one survived”, the top cop said.
He said the caller had informed that BJP worker Srikant Bharti and Siwan based businessman’s son Rajeev Raushan who was murdered in June 2014 figured in the hit list while the third person on whom the attempt was made had survived. The police had hinted that Rajdeo Ranjan’s murder was also an act of organised gang.
Earlier, chief minister Nitish Kumar said no effort has been spared in investigating the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan, the Siwan district bureau chief of Hindustan, and in the Gaya road rage incident in which a youngster was shot dead allegedly by the son of a JD(U) MLC.
