The Uttar Pradesh government has recommended a CBI probe into the alleged police killing of Yogi Adityanath’s “admirer” and businessman Manish Gupta but also formed a special investigation team, apparently keen on keeping options open while looking to pacify the victim’s wife.

“The chief minister has sent a recommendation for a CBI probe. The SIT will probe it till the CBI takes over,” Awanish Awasthi, additional chief secretary in the state home department, said.

Manish’s wife Meenakshi told reporters the police had been trying to protect the accused and she therefore didn’t trust a police SIT to unearth the truth. She said only a CBI probe would do and dropped her previous demand for a high court-monitored inquiry.

But a state home department source said the Union home ministry rarely accepted recommendations for CBI investigation unless there was “sustained pressure” from a state or the case involved multiple states, huge sums of money, intractable mystery or national implications.

Manish, a Kanpur-based property dealer, was apparently visiting Gorakhpur with friends to see how the city had developed under Adityanath’s rule. He died after six policemen allegedly beat him with rifle butts at a hotel room on Monday night for failing to promptly produce ID proof.

The police, who say they were checking hotel rooms as part of a pre-festive-season security routine, claim Manish slipped and fell, fatally injuring himself.

Even on Saturday, additional director-general of police (Gorakhpur zone) Akhil Kumar seemed to dilute the case for a CBI probe, saying: “When the police asked for identity proof, Manish tried to run away, fell and died.”

Meenakshi, whom the state government has given Rs 40 lakh as compensation and a job as officer on special duty with the Kanpur Development Authority, welcomed the recommendation for a CBI probe.

“The SIT is part of the police. How can I trust the police, who killed my husband? The entire force is trying to save the killers,” she said.

“Senior administrative and police officers had pressured me on Tuesday not to file an FIR.”

The SIT on Saturday visited Hotel Krishna Palace in Gorakhpur where Manish was allegedly beaten by the police.

Mohit Kumar, a relative, claimed Manish had “joined the BJP four months ago at a function in Kanpur” but this could not be verified.

A police officer cited past instances to express doubt whether a CBI inquiry would indeed be ordered.

“More than a year has passed but the Centre is yet to accept the recommendation for a CBI probe into the June 2020 kidnapping and murder of Kanpur lab technician Sanjeet Yadav. He was killed even after his family paid a Rs 30-lakh ransom in the presence of the police,” he said.

Nor has the Centre yet accepted a November 2019 recommendation for an investigation by the central agency into a Rs 2,600-crore financial scam in the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited.

While Adityanath’s April 1, 2017, recommendation for a CBI probe into alleged financial embezzlement in the Gomti Riverfront Project – a Samajwadi government initiative --- was accepted, the agency did little for four years apart from making an arrest.

Then, in July this year, it conducted raids in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan before things fell quiet again.

The Gomti project was the brainchild of then PWD minister Shivpal Yadav, uncle of then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Shivpal now runs his own Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and is considered close to Adityanath.