Son seeks new CBI probe into L.N. Mishra murder

Assassinated railway minister L.N. Mishra's son termed the four followers of Hindu sect Anand Marg convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court Thursday innocent and demanded the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) re-investigate the 1975 case.

"We demand re-investigation by the CBI into the murder of my father because the court verdict has disappointed us and we are not satisfied with the outcome of the case," Vijay Mishra said here.

He said that only a re-investigation would provide the family justice.

"Those four, who were sentenced by the court in the case, were not involved in the murder and innocent," he said.

"I am 100 percent sure. Innocents have been made guilty in the case. I am not blaming the court and questioning it because the court's verdict is on the basis of charge sheet filed by the CBI."

He said that he has been saying for years that Anand Marg was not behind the killing of his father.

"In fact Anand Margis have no problem or issue that they went to the extent of eliminating my father. I can say that Anand Margis were not at all involved," he said, demanding the court should reveal the Anand Marg's motive to kill him.

"It is for the government and its investigative agencies to come out with the real story and the real people behind the murder of a powerful leader of the country," he said.

Mishra also refuted speculations of the involvement of then prime minister Indira Gandhi in the case.

"I have never accepted such baseless and useless theory. Mrs Gandhi was not at all involved in it. Why should she be? She was neither directly not indirectly associated with any thing related to murder of my father," he said.

Mishra, who was himself injured along with his elder brother, in the incident which ensued when L.N. Mishra had gone to Samastipur Jan 2, 1975, to declare open the Samastipur-Muzaffarpur broad gauge railway line.

A bomb explosion on the dais seriously injured the minister, who was taken to the railway hospital at Danapur where he died the next day. The killing created a sensation in the country as Mishra was known to be close to the prime minister.