Even as reports circulated that BJD leader and former MP Jayaram Pangi on Sunday appeared before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team here for questioning in connection with sensational killing of schoolteacher Itishree Pradhan, Pangi denied it.
“CBI has not questioned me. I went to the circuit house to take rest. Some people from my party are trying to defame me,” said Pangi after coming out of the Circuit House, where the CBI has made its camp office.
He said he was the first person who had demanded a CBI probe into the Itishree Pradhan murder case and have no role or involvement in the ghastly incident.
According to reports, Pangi deposed at the CBI camp office at the Circuit House where officials had already arrived on Saturday. This is the 15th-phase CBI investigation into the case going on now.
Tikiri Upper Primary School (Rayagada district) teacher Itishree Pradhan had mentioned Pangi’s name in her video-graphed dying statement holding him responsible for her plight.
The BJD denied a ticket to Pangi to contest in the last general elections in 2014 as the Opposition accused him of shielding School Inspector Netrananda Dandasena, the main accused in the Itishree murder case.
Itishree, who was a native of Pipli, had been subjected to sexual harassment by Dandasena, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Rayagada District and Sessions Court last month.
Itishree had been set ablaze in the school premises by some unidentified persons on October 27, 2013 and died at a Visakhapatnam hospital on November 1 that year.