CRIME IN IAS OFFICERS’ RESIDENCE: IS CM’S STEP THE BEGINNING OF HUSHING UP BUSINESS?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

If the Chief Secretary (CS) investigates and issues a clean chit to IAS officer Ardhendu Mohan Sarangi and his wife Madhur also of IAS, in the matter of murderous assault on a low-paid employee in their residence, can the Police dare to find them guilty?

The poor employee Ramesh Sethi engaged in gardening by the Sarangis was brutally assaulted in their secured compound that has rendered him senseless since morning of May 21. With a surgery on brain he has been laying in critical condition in the Neurosurgery Department of S. C. B. Medical College, where Sarangi had remained present in the daytime today.

Sarangi’s presence in the Hospital watching progress of the operation makes it clear that he is well aware of the crime perpetrated. But he has not informed the Police about it. Why? Police is to find out the answer. Many such questions are there that the Sarangis are the persons to answer. But will the Police elicit the answers or the Chief Secretary?

When Sarangis have stayed away from informing the Police on the crime committed in the secured privacy of their residence, a self-proclaimed priest of theirs has preferred a belated FIR that informs Police of assault on Sethi with a spade following which the spade has been recovered from Sarangi’s compound.

So it is a homicidal offence calling for sessions trial.

In the matter of offenses of this nature, Law has given Police the right to investigate. But Law has never given any investigative role to the Chief Secretary.

It is intriguing therefore that the Chief Minister has preferred the CS to investigate into this tricky case of crime.

Is it the beginning of hushing up business?