Agency to agency, regime to regime, a probe twists and turns

The MP police had virtually stopped investigating the case, while admitting they were under political pressure to do so, until their hand was forced in November 2010 with the arrest of Harshad Solanki by the Rajasthan police under the then Congress government. The MP police secured Solanki’s police remand and in December 2010 claimed Joshi had been killed by his accomplices because he used to mistreat and abuse them.

In February 2011, the MP police arrested Sadhvi Pragya Singh (then under treatment in Mumbai) after charging her with conspiracy, murder and destruction of evidence, and filed a chargesheet against her and four others two days later in a Dewas court.

In between, the Rajasthan police and the Maharashtra ATS, also under a Congress government, had accused MP police of not cooperating in their investigations into acts of alleged Hindu terror in their respective states. The MP police for their part had accused the Mumbai ATS of not sharing anything with them after the arrest of the sadhvi.

The NIA under the UPA took over the investigation a few months later. It treated Joshi as one of the prime movers of the alleged blasts aimed at Muslims. A special court was set up in Bhopal and the trial was shifted there.

The central agency had not only questioned the Dewas police theory but arrested two persons allegedly involved in the actual killing. In the initial months of the NIA probe there was talk that the agency might book some MP police officials for destruction of evidence.

For nearly three years, the NIA sought one extension after another telling the court that there was a larger conspiracy behind the murder and it needed more time for investigation. It arrested an entirely new set of accused behind the murder and later sought more time to file the chargesheet. The delay in filing the chargesheet allowed the accused previously charged to get bail.

Months before the UPA-2 regime was to end, the NIA sent a final report to the home ministry. The supplementary chargesheet, which reduces the incident to a case of regular murder, comes months after the change of guard in May. Having once talked about a larger conspiracy, the NIA has now essentially endorsed the MP police version, with a few changes.

Congress chief spokesman K K Mishra alleged the NIA had changed the theory to suit its present political masters. By bringing in a sexual harassment angle, the NIA was trying to save Sadhvi Pragya Singh who is an accused in several acts of terror, Mishra said. “The digression is part of a strategy,” he said.