Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Saturday said she was ready for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the murder of an engineer provided the central government conceded her requests for similar probes into other cases involving the opposition Samajwadi Party.

"I would not mind entrusting the (murder) case to the CBI only if the union government concedes our earlier requests for CBI probes into several other cases," Mayawati told reporters.

"We will not allow the CBI to pick and choose cases that we refer to them for inquiry," she said.

M.K. Gupta, 52, a Public Works Department (PWD) engineer, was lynched in Auraiya early Wednesday, allegedly by ruling Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Shekhar Tiwari and his henchmen.

He was punished for refusing to donate money for Mayawati's birthday celebrations as demanded by the legislator, Gupta's family and opposition parties have said.

All opposition parties have demanded a CBI probe into the murder.

But, citing a number of cases in which the central government had denied a CBI probe, Mayawati said: "Let them accept all the cases that we had earlier referred for CBI. Then we will have no objection in handing over the Auraiya case to the agency."

Doubting the impartiality of the country's premier investigation agency, she said: "We have seen several incidents which glaringly speak of CBI's partisan approach. The latest in the line was that of withdrawal of charges in the disproportionate assets case against Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav."

This, she said, "also speaks volumes of the undue influence that the central government was exercising on the agency after Mulayam Singh Yadav had become a partner of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA)."

 

Source : IANS