The Union Home Ministry promptly recommended a CBI investigation into the death of BJP leader and actor Sonali Phogat, soon after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant wrote to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday. The pressure was showing on the Goa government after people at khap mahapanchayat in Hisar district, the home village of Phogat, threatened a mass agitation from September 24 if the case was not shifted.
Now that the decks are cleared for a CBI probe, it would be interesting to know where the agency will start. Will it take over from where Goa police have left? Or will it relook at the police findings? We ask this because the crime scene has been demolished, and the dance floor where Phogat was stated to have been “forced” to consume drugs and the place where she was being revived after going unconscious no longer stand at the site. Following the demolition exercise, all that is available for re-investigation is a section of the washrooms where drugs were allegedly found hidden.
The investigation, nonetheless, will change hands, but the swiftness and willingness of the State government to concede to the demands for a CBI probe is astounding. Lest we forget, the chief minister had expressed readiness to hand over the probe to the CBI in the early stages of the case.
The easy handing over of the probe to the CBI is, in a way, reflecting on the failure of the Goa police. However, it also raises the question of whether Sawant has acted under pressure from the family, the Hisar villagers and his party bosses in Delhi. The political undercurrents are visible as much as the embarrassment the drug overdose angle has brought to the BJP. Otherwise, how does Sawant justify not taking similar recourse in other sensitive cases in Goa, including the gruesome death of Siddhi Naik, a 19-year-old Nachinola girl who was found dead on the beach in a semi-nude condition? The entire state was shocked and shaken, and her father consistently pleaded that her daughter was murdered. Did this case not merit a CBI probe since the police had hit a dead end?
Goa has recorded around 25 murder cases so far this year. On what basis is the Phogat case singled out for a CBI inquiry, and none of the other 24, some of which are far more suspicious? The argument that the CBI would be better positioned to study the case from the Hisar angle and the connections to property pale out because the dots to the “murder” theory are not connecting in Goa, and a crucial segment of evidence is now lost.
A CBI investigation should be called based on the sensitivity and seriousness of cases, especially where there are justifiable reasons to believe that local police have failed. Yet, the chief minister and the DGP, until yesterday, have been consistently maintaining that the Goa police are doing a fine job on the Phogat case. The decision, in this case, is hard to comprehend and only highlights how easily the system can bend when there are political powers at play.
