Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati may have handed the Madhumita Shukla murder case to the Criminal Investigation Department, but it is unlikely that the guilty will be brought to book.
Shukla, a poetess, was shot dead at her Paper Mill Colony residence in Lucknow on May 9.
The CID, which has been asked to complete the probe within a month, is known as the 'cold storage' of all major cases.
"At least over the past two-and-a-half decades that I have known the CID in this state, there has not been a single case in which the organisation has made a major breakthrough," says a senior police officer.
Another officer with three decades of experience with the CID says, "The common practice with most politicians and other influential people is to get all such cases transferred to the CID... the accused are unlikely to get nailed."
The chief minister says if the probe does not prove anything against Amarmani Tripathi, the minister who resigned after reports of his love affair with Shukla surfaced, she will re-induct him into the Cabinet.
She has also replaced Lucknow district police chief Anil Agarwal with Vijay Kumar, a Tripathi protégé.