The Auraiya police have decided to reopen two cases — one of driving somebody to suicide and another of kidnapping and murder — against BSP legislator Shekhar Tiwari’s associates Vinay Tiwari and Manjul Pandey.

While the first case was closed, it was learnt that a chargesheet was filed in the second without proper investigation. And in neither case, Manjul Pandey or Vinay Tiwari was named.

Bhanu Pratap Singh, Inspector General (Kanpur zone) said: “We have filed applications in the court under Section173/8 of the CrPC to reinvestigate both cases, focussing on the role of Vinay Tiwari and Manjul Pandey.”

Along with legislator Shekhar Tiwari, Vinay and Manjul are accused in the December 23 murder of PWD executive engineer M K Gupta. While the MLA and Vinay Tiwari are behind the bars, Pandey is on the run.

In his suicide note on May 25, 2008, one Deepak Gupta had blamed Vinay for his death. In the note, Deepak said that Vinay had duped him of lakhs of rupees and kept harassing him.

But the police did not register an FIR.

Recalling his travails, Deepak’s father Subhash Gupta said, “When the local police showed no interest in the case, I met senior officers. On the directive of an officer, we went to the police station. There, Vinay Tiwari was sitting beside a police officer”.

It was only after Deepak’s parents got an order from court, an FIR was registered on August 24. But the Dibiyapur police, instead of investigating the case, filed the final report in court.

The final report was filed without even examining Vinay Tiwari’s role. Incidentally, the Station Officer of Dibiyapur at the time was Hoshiyar Singh, whose name too, cropped up in the Gupta murder case and who is now absconding.

The case against Manjul Pandey — who was sacked as the legislator’s representative in the BSP’s district unit after Gupta’s murder — was filed on September 23, 2008 at the Auraiya Kotwali police station. Eight-year-old Anmol Barsiya, a student of St Joseph School, was apparently kidnapped for ransom, but events moved so fast that the kidnappers had to kill the boy.