*A journalist is killed in Jharkhand soon after exposing a minister's property deals. The police are busy in a cover-up*
*Deoghar, Jharkhand* A MAKE SHIFT BAMBOO enclosure on the roadside in the pilgrim town of Deoghar has scores of people pouring in daily to sign a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of Jharkhand, demanding a CBI inquiry into the murder of journalist Pramod Kumar Munna. But Munna's family and friends have little hope as the Urban Development, Tourism and Rural Engineering Organisation Minister Harinarayan Rai is alleged to be behind Munna's "elimination". Munna, a reporter with Hindi news magazine *Samakalin Tapaman,* was gunned down on December 16, 2007, just outside the Baidyanathdham railway station in Deoghar. The murder caused such public outrage that shops, schools and colleges remained shut and journalists in six Santhal Pargana districts wore black badges in protest. The murder also rocked the Jharkhand Assembly as CM Madhu Koda dismissed the Opposition's demand for a CBI probe. In the September 2007 issue of his magazine, Munna had exposed how Rai, an Independent MLA, and his family were allegedly using his position to acquire property and promote themselves. After its publication, Munna received threatening phone calls from the minister's men. The reporter's widow, Parvati Devi, told TEHELKA, "The minister also telephoned him several times after the story was published and called him to Ranchi for a meeting, but he refused to go." The site of the murder was very close to the Deoghar town police station and the Railway Police post. The police not only failed to arrest the assailants, they took the injured Munna not to the hospital but to the police station on the footboard of a rickshaw. After he died, they did not let his family see his body until the next morning. Station in-charge Binod Kumar was later suspended. Munna had lost an eye in a similar attack at Jamui in Bihar in 2002, allegedly masterminded by Banka MP Girdhari Yadav. The attack followed Munna's exposing links between Yadav and Naxalites in the region. Yadav was cleared in the investigation and the police claimed the attack was the handiwork of the notorious Hajra gang of whose political connections Munna had written about in his now defunct publication. While the similarities between the two attacks have the police trying to establish the motive of the murder in enmities Munna may have had in Jamui district, people close to the journalist believe the second attack was designed to mislead the police. Despite Deoghar SP Manoj Kaushik's assurance that Rai's involvement would be considered, the arrest of two people from Jamui and subsequent claims by the police that Munna's killing was the result of past prudges has virtually ensured that Rai is out of the investigation's purview. Arjun Yadav, who is close to RJD MP Girdhari Yadav, and Munarika Devi from Munna's native village were arrested on the ground of old animosity over the Lahaban gram panchayat mukhiya elections in 2001-02. The police also claim Munna and Munarika Devi had an illicit relationship, which Parvati Devi denies. "The police want to divert the focus of the investigation from the minister. It is the police who have killed my husband, as they did not take him to a hospital. They also allowed the attackers to flee," says Parvati Devi. THE POLICE have also picked up Ganesh Barnewal, a PCO operator, as a call on Munna's mobile phone was made hours before his murder from Barnewal's booth. His wife Meera Devi says the police forced him to confess that Arjun Yadav made the call and that he recognised Yadav. As TEHELKA found out, a piece of bloodstained paper that was found on Munna at the murder spot was excluded from the list of items recovered. This paper mentions two prime properties in Deoghar — Khemka Bhawan and Ilam Kothi, worth Rs 65 lakh and Rs 1.18crore respectively — along with the names of some property dealers. Sources said a senior bureaucrat purchased one of these properties in a relative's name while the other's sale was at an advanced stage of negotiation with a politician. Deoghar's importance as a pilgrim town for the famed Baidyanath Dham temple and its natural springs has attracted people from neighbouring states to purchase properties here in a major way. Real estate dealers with powerful political connections have been forcing land owners to sell for peanuts. "Property dealers here have got the covert protection of bureaucrats and politicians. These businessmen also have the cooperation of criminal syndicates active in Mokama, Lakhisarai, Banka and Jamui across the border in Bihar," says a senior lawyer. But Harinarayan Rai says, "The two arrests have settled the case and proved that the allegations against me are baseless. There is no need for a CBI probe now, although I had not shied away from one." Munna's eldest son Prince Mantu wanted to be a journalist, but no longer nurtures that ambition. "Papa encouraged me to write poems and was happy when they were published. Now, I have lost all interest," he says. ** *ANAND ST DAS* [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** *Published at - tehelka.com* -- Jharkhand News [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jharkhand Online Network www.jharkhand.org.in/news
