Mysuru: Dismissing claims by the opposition BJP for handing over the IMA investor scam to the CBI, Home Minister M.B. Patil asserted on Monday that there was no need for this as the Karnataka police department is capable of handling the case and will not spare anyone no matter how big they are and irrespective of the party they belong to.
He was speaking to media persons after participating in the passing out parade of 170 women jail wardens who were trained for nine months at the Prison training institute in Mysuru.
Answering a question on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s demand to hand over the IMA case to the CBI as names of senior politicians had cropped up, and that party's plan to petition the Union home minister in this regard, Mr Patil said, “Let them complain. It is not fair to harp on names until the investigation is over. Many cases have been handed over to the CBI in the past five years, did they do anything? When the Congress was in power, the BJP dubbed the CBI ‘Congress bureau of investigation.’ Now why are they insisting that the case be handed over to the central agency? Many cases including the murder cases of MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh were cracked by the state police. We have already formed a SIT to investigate the IMA case and our major objective is to arrest the prime accused, Mansoor Khan. All their shops and assets have been seized. I have personally reviewed the complaints. There are 17 cases with the CID and seven with CCB. Unless a FIR is filed, the police cannot act on it,” he said.
Asked about the action against other organisations like IMA and if they would take up suo motu cases against such organisations, the home minister said, “the chief secretary on Monday held a meeting with officials of different departments to fix responsibility and to discuss the formation of a task force to monitor these organisations.”
During his speech, Mr Patil also said they would bring personnel of the department of prisons and fire and emergency services on the same pay scale as the police.
