Bhopal, May 19 (IANS) Former Congress leader Sarla Mishra’s brother, Anurag Mishra, on Monday submitted an application with the Bhopal police, demanding that a case be registered against persons responsible for his sister’s death.

The application was filed at Bhopal’s T. T Nagar police station, demanding that an FIR should be against the then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, his younger brother and ex-MLA Lakshman Singh, Investigation Officer (IO) of the case and a few other persons.

“Today, we received an application from Anurag Mishra, the brother of late Sarla Mishra. In his application, Mishra alleged that former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, his brother Lakshman Singh and some others are suspects in her sister’s suicide case, and demanded that a case should be registered against them,” T. T. Nagar police station in-charge, Man Singh, told IANS.

The development came after a judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) court in Bhopal ordered the police to reinvestigate the case while observing that earlier investigations appeared to have been incomplete.

The order for reinvestigation in the case has come 28 years after the death of Congress leader Sarla Mishra.

On April 17, the court of JMFC Palak Rai, in its order, stated that the facts in Anurag Mishra’s protest petition and witness statements (the police filed a closure report in this) point to an incomplete investigation.

On this ground, the court ordered the TT Nagar police to reinvestigate the case.

Hailing from Narmadapuram, Sarla Mishra was a firebrand state Youth Congress leader. On February 14, 1997, she was found severely burned inside her government house in Bhopal. She died at New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital during treatment on Feb 19, 1997.

The TT Nagar police of Bhopal district, after a three-year-long probe, concluded it to be a case of suicide and closed the probe in the case in 2000.

The closure report, however, was filed by the police in the court more than 19 years later in Bhopal.

Her brother, Anurag, petitioned against the closure report and alleged that it was a case of murder.

On April 17, Anurag Mishra had said that, “My elder brother Anand Mishra met Sarla two or three days before the February 14, 1997 incident, when my sister told him about growing bitterness and differences between her, then Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh and his brother Laxman Singh, Rajgarh MP. Why didn’t the police record my elder brother’s statements?”

–IANS

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