Days after the kin of slain Communist Party of India (CPI) leader, Govind Pansare, moved the Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra government has announced the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the killing.

The team will comprise of police officers from Kolhapur, Sangli and Pune districts and would report directly to Sanjay Kumar, Additional Director-General of Police of the Pune-based State Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

According to sources, with the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party government under popular pressure to bring Mr. Pansare’s murderers to book, Mr. Kumar held a review meeting of the team on Wednesday in Kolhapur to discuss the need to bring the labyrinthine investigation to a concrete conclusion.

So far, the policehave been unable to achieve any significant breakthrough in the 81-year-old activist’s shocking murder ever since he was gunned down outside his house in February.

Last week, Mr. Pansare’s daughter Smita and his daughter-in-law, Megha filed an application before the court seeking an SIT probe under the supervision of the Bombay High Court.

Mr. Pansare’s kin are not trusting of a CBI investigation into the matter after the unsolved murder of Pune-based RTI activist Satish Shetty unravelled the blatant political pressure wrought on investigating officers in that case, which is languishing even after Mr. Shetty’s murder in 2010.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/maharashtra-orders-sit-probe-into-pansare-murder/article7134569.ece/