Panaji, March 8 (IANS) The union personnel ministry has not responded to the Goa government's request that the probe into the police-politician-drug mafia nexus in the state be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), says chief secretary Sanjay Srivastava.
He said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which functions under the ministry for personnel handled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself, is proving to be a blind alley for Goa's attempts for a CBI probe into the drug nexus.
"We had written to the union ministry of personnel for handing over the drug case to the CBI weeks back. But we have still received no reply from them," Srivastava told IANS.
He said with no reply forthcoming from the central ministry, he had been forced to write to the CBI directly, requesting the federal agency to take over the investigation into the drug nexus in which Home Minister Ravi Naik's son has been linked by the international media and the opposition.
"We are not supposed to write to the CBI directly. But with no answer forthcoming from the personnel ministry, we were forced to take the step," the top bureaucrat said.
The chief secretary's comments come after similar statements from Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gopinath Munde.
On Feb 18, Kamat had told a media conference there had been no response from the DoPT after the chief secretary formally requested them to instruct the CBI to take charge of the drug probe.
"The chief secretary had written to them (DoPT), but they have not responded. We will write a reminder again," Kamat had said.
On Friday, Munde, BJP's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, said the prime minister had been mum on a petition by the opposition party seeking a CBI probe into the Goa drug nexus.
"We had raised the issue with the prime minister. Arti ji (referring to Arti Mehra who is the party's secretary in charge of Goa) had written a petition to him. But there has been no response from him," Munde said.
Several policemen as well as two Israeli drug dealers were arrested and subsequently released after a Swedish model and a former girlfriend of a drug dealer had uploaded incriminating videos on popular video upload site www.youtube.com.