Thiruvananthapuram: State police sanctioned manpower and vehicle support to CBI to assist investigation in three cases, including the Periya double murder case. State police chief Loknath Behera gave sanction to depute officers from the force to assist the agency in probing Periya double murder case and the custodial deaths of PP Mathai at a forest office in Pathanamthitta and Rajkumar in Nedumkandam police station in Idukki.
CBI had sought manpower, office facilities and vehicles in these cases. While police officers for assistance and vehicles have been sanctioned, the sanction for office facilities at PWD rest houses in Kasaragod, Kattappana and Pathanamthitta are soon expected from the government.
Though the agency has its own manpower, the assistance from local police force – in the state where it operates – are availed for multiple reasons. Similarly, the agency opens its office in a government facility in the local area where it is probing a case.
The government and CBI share a chequered relationship. While the government gave a cold shoulder to the agency when it requested facilities in cases the government had no interest in transferring, the approach was warmer in cases that were handed over to CBI at the behest of the government.
In Periya double murder case, CBI had written twice, within a span of a year, to the government to provide necessary logistical support, but government refused to acknowledge the same until it lost its case in the Supreme Court; it was against handing over the case to CBI.
CBI had faced similar issues when it took up cases that involved CPM cadres in the past. In 2016, public works department issued an order cancelling the free-accommodation facilities to CBI sleuths with retrospective effect when the agency had taken up cases of Kathiroor Manoj murder in Sept 2014, Payyoli Manoj murder case in Jan 2016 and Ramabhadran murder case in Kollam in Oct 2015, in which CPM activists were the prime accused.
But in other cases, like the custodial death in Kattappana – in which the decision was taken by the government to hand over the case to CBI – it was receptive towards the agency’s request for logical support. While CBI sought logistical support for three cases, it had recently returned the manpower and other help extended to it in five cases in which it had completed its investigation.
Meanwhile, informed sources said that CBI has taken up the allegations made by a media – that the meeting of CBI SP, who is heading the special crimes branch in state, with state police chief Loknath Behera had cast aspersions on the transparency of investigation – with police and agency higher-ups.
Nandakumar Nair, who heads the agency’s SCB in Kerala, had called on state police chief last Wednesday. “CBI SP met me to seek logistical support from the police for probing the cases handed over to it. We have assured them that all possible support will be extended to CBI,” Behera said.