Anjali Behera

Cuttack, May 10: The controversy over the death of the chairman of Hindol Block Panchayat Samiti, Nabaghana Sahoo, took a new turn today with Orissa High Court issuing notices to state women and child welfare minister Anjali Behera on a PIL seeking CBI probe into the incident that had occurred under mysterious circumstances about a year ago.

The court issued the notice while refusing to consider the necessity of a CBI probe without giving the minister an opportunity to clarify her standpoint. The court was hearing a PIL filed by Dhenkanal Nagarika Mancha convener Prasanta Kumar Mishra and nine others, along with a petition filed by Durmila Sahoo, mother of Nabaghana seeking a CBI probe on the death alleging involvement of minister Behera.

The petition stated that it was a “political murder” and it is suspected that he was allegedly killed at the behest of local MLA Behera.

“Since she is a minister in the state cabinet, the CID-Crime Branch cannot independently, freely and fairly investigate into the political murder. Therefore, the case should be handed over to the CBI,” the PIL contended.

“The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra issued the notice to minister Behera today after expressing dissatisfaction over the investigation by the CID-Crime Branch into the case so far,” petitioner counsel Himanshu Mishra told The Telegraph.

“The court expected the minister to file a response to enable it to consider the necessity of a CBI probe along with her point of view,” Mishra said.

Nabaghana had purportedly written a letter to the Dhenkanal superintendent of police seeking protection for his life. Earlier, the CID-Crime Branch submitted a forensic report which had confirmed that the signature in the letter matched with that of Nabaghana. But, the CID-Crime Branch investigation team had failed to make any satisfactory progress in ascertaining the veracity of the apprehensions indicated in the letter and submit a report. The progress of investigation was found to be dissatisfactory.

Nabaghana, a member of the Biju Janata Dal, died on May 14 after being hit by a jeep near his cashew field, about one and half kilometre away from his village Ganjara. Nabaghana’s brother Muralidhar alleged that he was murdered and lodged an FIR at Rasol police station suspecting involvement of four persons.

Controversy had sparked off after the murder when the Opposition bayed for the blood of minister Behera in connection with it as a close confidant of the minister had been named main accused in the case. There were allegations that Behera had been behind the death of Sahoo as she perceived him to be a threat to her political career.

Anjali, however, had rubbished the allegations and said: “Those who are jealous of my rise in power have hatched a political conspiracy against me. They want to defame me.”