In a statement here, Jayalalitha said the recent Madras High Court order directing a CBI investigation into the suspected custodial death of Mohan, an AIADMK functionary at Cheyyar police station some months ago, showed that the CB-CID had failed to carry out an honest investigation.

The magisterial inquiry and the CB-CID probe into the mysterious death had yielded contradictory findings, with the former saying there were 16 injuries on Mohan's body, while the agency concluded that he had consumed poison, she said.

Apart from this case, the CB-CID had also failed to convince the Madras High Court about its conclusion that a DMK MLA was not involved in sandalwood smuggling, leading to the court ordering a CBI investigation, she said.

These two orders of theMadras High Court only revealed that the CB-CID succumbed to the chief minister's dictates, Jayalalitha said and alleged that the police had been turned into puppets in the ruling party's hands.

The CB-CID is handling several sensitive cases, including the Coimbatore blasts case, besides some corruption cases against Jayalalitha herself.

Jayalalitha recalled that she had demanded a judicial inquiry into the death of Mohan and that there was a road roko by the people of Cheyyar when they came to know that his body was thrown into the street shortly after he was detained for interrogation.

However, the Karunanidhi regime did not take the agitation and the people's feelings seriously, and also slighted her demand, she said.

She also referred to the death of forest ranger Vijayan, said to be a witness in the sandalwood smuggling case against the DMK legislator, and said the CB-CID had held that he had died in a road accident. He had died `under mysterious circumstances' within hours of giving astatement to the CBI (which had taken over the sandalwood case based on the court order), she said.

Citing another instance, Jayalalitha alleged that police officials who had registered an FIR against state tourism minister Suresh Rajan had been `rendered dysfunctional' so that they could not arrest the minister. (The allegation against Rajan is that he had assaulted a Dalit functionary of his own party and called him by his caste name).

``The people cannot expect just investigation and honest action by the state police department functioning under the control of Karunanidhi,' she said.