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Why is the Orissa police doing a lousy job of investigating the Stains murder?

Have you ever had an eerie sense of familiarity upon seeing someone or something for the first time, an old sense of familiarity as though you had already met earlier though your mind says that isn't possible? I felt something of the kind when reading about Rabinder Pal Singh, better known today as Dara Singh, the main accused in the Stains murder case. And then the connection hit me: Romesh Sharma.

No, Dara Singh isn't in the same league as Dawood Ibrahim's henchman, nor is he accused to quite as many crimes. But has anyone noticed the amazing similiarities in the atmosphere (for want of a better word) that permitted them to commit their crimes and the even more amazing lax manner in which those crimes are being investigated?

Romesh Sharma's activities took place almost entirely in the years of Congress rule. He was the instrument used to crush Maneka Gandhi's outfit after she broke away from the Congress family, he was an office-bearer in the Congress's farmers's cell, and it was Congress governments that permitted him to continue unhampered with all his activities in Delhi.

Yet the moment that he was arrested -- under the aegis of a BJP-led government mind you -- the Congress immediately turned around and accused him of having been under BJP protection all along! Nobody bothered to explain just how a party that was almost continuously on the Opposition benches could have shielded someone from the CBI.

So how does this link up with Dara Singh? Well, everybody agrees that he has spent his life in Orissa. That happens to be a state that has never been ruled by the BJP, but only by the Congress and the Janata Dal in succession. Yet the moment he achieved international notoriety the non-BJP parties immediately dubbed him a saffronite to the core.

It may be quite true that Dara Singh was associated with the Bajrang Dal, but surely that organisation was in no position to protect him from the police in Orissa. (For the record, neither the Bajrang Dal nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad even has a branch in Dara Singh's home district, but that, of course, doesn't mean that he couldn't have been influenced by them). And yes, the police was indeed on Dara Singh's track well before the Stains murder. Yet the administration always seemed to be looking the other way when the issue of bringing him to heel arose.

The records now reveal that the Keonjhar district administration moved for his detention under the National Security Act. However, the superior authorities in Bhubaneshwar sat on the recommendation for still undisclosed reasons. Why?

But that is like asking why the Narasimha Rao government didn't arrest Romesh Sharma in spite of the fact that the authorities had tapped a conversation of his with Dubai! More to the point, neither Sharma nor Dara Singh is absconding as everyone knows. But the Orissa police managed to lay hands on seven students and 42 others. Now comes the amazing part -- not a single one of these 49 people has been remanded to custody. Not one!

By the way, that FIR is a pretty amazing document in its own right. It was filed by a person who neither speaks nor writes Oriya, but has somehow signed in a language he doesn't know. And it is on the basis of this that the Orissa police began its so-called investigation.

It is a well-established principle that 'well begun is half done.' But the opposite is equally true. The FIR the root of the investigation, is suspiciously shoddy. The main accused is still at large in spite of the fact that his face should now be familiar to every policeman in Orissa (and parts beyond too). And to cap it all, Dara Singh's supposed accomplices have been left to wander around as they will.

It bears repetition that it is a Congress government that rules Orissa and to which the Orissa police must answer. Whatever the extent of Dara Singh's links with the Sangh Parivar -- and there are undeniably some connections -- you can't blame the Bajrang Dal for mucking up the investigation. In plain and simply words; why is the Orissa police doing such a lousy job of investigating the Stains murder case?

T V R Shenoy