Home department says investigation necessary to ascertain if negligence was motivated
Pen Police
Additional chief secretary (home) KP Bakshi told SUNDAY mid-day that although a fresh report on the Raigad investigation botch-up following Sheena Bora’s 2012 murder had not been demanded, crucial additional information has been sought from the Director General of Police, Praveen Dixit. Sources in the home department said the one-page report that was submitted by former DGP Sanjeev Dayal to Bakshi was incomplete, but it clearly pointed out that the then Raigad superintendent of police, RD Shinde, was negligent and issued instructions to his juniors that no case be registered despite a body (then unidentified but confirmed later that it was Sheena’s) being found, and the case appearing like one involving murder.
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Pen taluka in Raigad, where the police dug out the remains of Sheena Bora in August this year. Pic/Datta Kumbhar
When an inquiry was ordered in the Pen incident following investigation this August by the Mumbai police, Subhash Mirge, the then investigating officer from Raigad police, told the incumbent SP that Shinde not only asked him to ignore the case, but also did not allow him to register the death as an accident and investigate it further. Mirge was merely asked to make a note in the police diary.
Sources say Shinde had denied Mirge’s statements. The CBI is likely to interrogate him, said a senior home department officer. “The home department thought of seeking more information because it wants to establish whether it was the officer’s negligence/dereliction of duty or a motivated decision,” said a senior home department official. After getting Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis’s go ahead, the minister of state for home Dr Ranjeet Patil and Bakshi had taken a decision on September 18 to transfer the murder probe to the CBI. According to Bakshi, the reason behind the transfer was to ensure that there was no interference by state (police and other) officers in the case.
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