BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday opined that the recent mob lynching of three men in Maharashtra's Palghar was a case of "pre-meditated murder".
He also urged Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to agree to a CBI probe into the issue.
"Based on my discussions with Senior Police officials, I as a person who knows the history of Palghar, being quite close by to my LS constituency: Mumbai NE, I am convinced that the killing of two Sadhus and their driver was pre- meditated murder," Swamy wrote on Twitter.
The Palghar incident took place on he night of April 16 when three men - two sadhus and their driver - were going from Mumbai in a car towards Surat in Gujarat to attend a funeral. Their vehicle was stopped near a village in Palghar district and the three were dragged out and beaten beaten to death by a mob on suspicion that they were child-lifters.
Since then, 101 people had been arrested in connection with the case.
While many had alleged that there was a communal angle to the incident, this has been denied repeatedly by the state government. On Wednesday, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh reiterated that said none of the 101 people arrested in connection with the case were Muslim, and accused the opposition of giving a communal colour to the incident.
The Maharashtra government had earlier ordered a high- level probe into the incident, and two policemen from Palghar were suspended on Monday for alleged dereliction of duty.
Also on Wednesday, a PIL was filed in the Bombay High Court on Tuesday by lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava seeking a CBI/SIT inquiry and a time-bound trial in a fast track court.
As of Wednesday, the CID has has taken over the investigation of three First Information Reports (FIRs) in the Palghar lynching incident.
