Court reserves order on further probe in NRI murder case

AHMEDABAD: A city sessions court has kept its order reserved till February 2 on applications demanding further probe in the controversial murder case of NRI, Pankaj Trivedi.
Trivedi was clubbed to death on June 15, 2006 by giving blow of baseball bats near Ellisbridge Gymkhana a few months after he took on the Swadhyay Parivar led by Pandurang Shastri’s daughter Dhanshree Talvalkar.
Police arrested 10 persons and chargesheeted them. More than six years later, the court framed charges against them last month. Two witnesses Vinu Sanchaniya and Girish Joshi told the court that police investigation was not satisfactory and the court should order further probe.
The witnesses’ counsel Vinod Gajjar submitted before the court that the Investigating Officer, then PI of Ellisbridge police station - V D Gohil has been shielding the influential people from the Swadhyay Pariwar by not taking vital information and evidence on record.
The witnesses claimed that police inspector Gohil is always appointed as IO in all cases lodged against members of the Swadhyay Pariwar, whether the offence was registered in Jamnagar or in Ahmedabad. They alleged that the cop was transferred with a view to assigning these cases, and Gohil seeks to close the case.
Alleging nexus between the investigator and Swadhyay Pariwar, the witnesses demanded further probe by investigating agency that has some credibility.
The applicants claimed that there were many others involved in Trivedi’s murder, but the IO did his best to shield them. The investigation papers revealed that the cop had not probed in a proper direction and never paid heed to the leads he was given. The IO has been accused of taking evidence from people related to the accused persons, and just made a show of counter questioning them. He has not analysed call details in proper manner.
In a rebuttal, the state government claimed that the IO probed all possible aspects in this case and urged the court to reject the applications demanding further probe.