Remember the infamous incident of a six-decade old teakwood chariot of Lord Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Antarvedi in East Godavari district (now Konaseema district) being destroyed in a fire?
The incident, which happened in the intervening night of September 5 and 6, 2020, triggered a state-wide uproar. Apart from Telugu Desam Party, several Hindu groups and Bharatiya Janata Party raised a hue and cry over the incident.
As it started snowballing into a major political controversy, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy quickly responded by suspending temple executive officer N Chandradhar Rao, besides shifting Endowments Commissioner J S V Prasad to a non-focal post.
Following demand from the right-wing groups and the BJP, the chief minister entrusted the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation on September 11, within five days of the incident, besides getting a new chariot to be made within a year for the temple.
So far so good. After the case was entrusted to the CBI, everybody conveniently forgot about the probe. There has been a stoic silence from the BJP which demanded that the culprits be brought to book. The Jagan government, too, gave up further probe.
Three years later, some Hindu rights activist sought to know what had happened to the probe. He filed a query with the CBI seeking to know what had happened to the CBI probe into the temple chariot burning case.
The reply given by the CBI and sent through Department of Personnel and Training, the Government of India in October this year, was shocking. It said the investigation into the Antarvedi temple chariot burning case has not been taken up by the CBI at all, as it was not fit for CBI investigation.
“The Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, PG and Pensions. Government of India had regretted the request of the State Government of Andhra Pradesh for CBI investigation into the incident due to the case being not fit for CBI Investigation,” the reply to the RTI query said.
The Centre asked the RTI petitioner to approach the appellate authority in the CBI, in case of any further doubts within 30 days.
Now, even this 30-day period is over and one doesn’t know the fate of the CBI reply. It clearly indicates that the CBI rejected the Jagan government’s request for a probe in September 2020 itself and subsequently, neither the Centre nor the Jagan government bothered about an investigation!