Bengaluru, March 13 -- BJP MLA Bharath Shetty on Thursday criticised the Karnataka government's decision to withdraw the CID probe into the Ranya Rao gold smuggling case. He questioned the move, calling it suspicious and suggesting that the government might be trying to protect its officials from being named in the inquiry.

Speaking to ANI, BJP MLA Dr Bharath Shetty Y said, "Everything looks fishy here... It looks like the CID officials have informed the state government that they won't be able to help the government because a few of the government officials' names might come up in the inquiry. Whereas, when it came to the MUDA case, though an ED inquiry was going on, Siddaramaiah went ahead with the Lokayukta inquiry to free himself fro...