His team running for cover, CBI chief in Gaya

Haunted by the recent ‘‘suicides’’ of two men questioned by it in the Satyendra Dubey murder case, the CBI today asserte...

Haunted by the recent ‘‘suicides’’ of two men questioned by it in the Satyendra Dubey murder case, the CBI today asserted here that its team conducting the investigation comprised its best officers.

With police lodging an FIR against these officers, CBI Director U.S. Mishra arrived in Gaya leading a team to hold ‘‘direct consultation with the district administration’’ and to review investigation in the case.

Earlier, speaking in Patna, Mishra reiterated that the suicides had tremendously hampered the probe into the Dubey case. Asked if vested interests were trying to derail it, the CBI Director said: ‘‘It is a matter of investigation and that’s why I have come here.’’

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The people in Katari village from where the two who died—Mukendra Paswan and Shivnath Sao—hailed say they were picked up by the CBI team at the insistence of some policemen in the local Chandauti police station who had an axe to grind against Paswan.

In order to determine if robbery was the motive for Dubey’s murder, the CBI has been checking up on local criminals.

On January 24, a CBI team reportedly arrived in a car here, dragged local villager Vinod Kumar into it and sped away. Angry villagers stormed the police station in protest. Mukendra Paswan, says local Bajrang Dal leader Chhotu Rawat, was among the most vocal protestors.

Paswan was picked up the same day by the CBI but let off soon after, and asked to return the next day along with Sao. Now relatives of both allege that the two returned every time with stories of CBI torture, and it was this that drove them to take the extreme step.

	High Court gives Centre 15 more days

			PATNA: The Patna High Court on Wednesday granted the Union Government’s plea to extend by 15 days the submission of an affidavit on existing security arrangements in GQ construction, in a case flowing from the Dubey murder. The Centre pleaded that since the Home Secretary had just taken over, it needed more time to submit that it was satisfied with the security on the GQ. Plea for a judicial probe into the deaths of two persons being interrogated by the CBI will also come up at the next date of hearing, on February 19. Story continues below this ad

‘‘The CBI asked them to either name the killers of Dubey or own it up themselves. When they did not do either, they were made to sit on imaginary chairs and threatened that their sisters and mothers would be paraded naked. Every day they returned broken and ceased speaking towards the end,’’ say Sao’s father Vaidyanath, and Paswan’s father Danesh.

The Gaya police too say this was what Sao and Paswan told them when they were admitted to Gaya Medical College on Sunday after they allegedly consumed poison. In its defence, the CBI says it did not interrogate the two at all on Sunday. Vinod Kumar says that in his case at least, no torture was used. ‘‘The CBI called me several times and asked a series of questions but never tortured me,’’ says Kumar. ‘‘Some questions were about Mukendra and his activities.’’

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