New Delhi, August 20
The CBI has registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) to ascertain the
authenticity of a TV news channel's report about a purported conversation between Union Minister Manikrao Gavit and a gangster in Uttar Pradesh.
The PE was registered following a direction from the Prime Minister's Office asking the CBI to ascertain whether the voice in the report was that of Mr Gavit, the Minister of State for Home, and to verify the TV channel's claims about his links with criminals in Uttar Pradesh.
After registering the PE, the CBI is understood to have seized all tapes of the news report pertaining to Mr Gavit from the Noida office of Zee Telefilms Limited, sources said, adding these tapes will be sent to Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) for examination.
To assess the authenticity of the TV report, the CFSL is expected to record fresh voice sample of Mr Gavit, who is camping in Maharashtra and is likely to be in Delhi tomorrow, and compare the same with the seized tapes.
If the voice was not of the minister, the CBI will begin a probe into any alleged conspiracy behind the matter and those who hatched it, the sources said. Since the current session of Parliament will end on August 25, the CBI is expected to submit a report to the government by Thursday itself, sources added.
The TV channel had aired a report on the purported telephone conversation between the minister and Sundar Bhati, an alleged mafia leader, to seek the latter's help to solve a reported land dispute.
