Mangaluru, Jul 10: The Dakshina Kannada district unit of CPI(M) has berated the Bharatiya Janata party for using Mangaluru DySP M K Ganapathi’s suicide case for political gains and has termed the protest planned by the saffron party ‘a gimmick'.

 Since the police officer Ganapathi has levelled harassment allegations against K J George before killing himself earlier this week, the BJP has demanded the state government to handover the suicide case to CBI and sack K J George.

In a release issued here, CPI (M) district secretary Vasantha Acharya stated that protest planned by district unit of BJP on July 11 against the Ganapathi's death is nothing but a gimmick.

"Why is the BJP planning to hold protest for Ganapathi,while it was silent when Chikkamagaluru DySP Kallappa Handibag committed suicide? BJP has not shown concern when Handibag committed suicide as it was linked to a Sangh Parivar leader. Similarly, BJP has not declared its stand on NaMo Brigade founder Naresh Shenoy's involvement in the murder of RTI activist Vinayaka P Baliga. Hence, BJP has no moral rights to hold protest for Ganapathy and people need not take it seriously, " Mr Acharya said and urged the government to conduct unbiased investigation into deaths of Handibag, Ganapathy and Baliga.

It could be recalled here that DySP Kallappa, had committed suicide last Tuesday and was accused of involving in the kidnap of a youth for ransom along with the mastermind Praveen Khandya, a leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Khandya was later arrested by the CID police. 

The Karnataka government has ordered CID probes into both suicide cases. However, the BJP is demanding CBI probe into only once suicide case.