Dehradun, Oct. 31 -- The Uttarakhand high court has transferred the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Mahant Mohandas, the pontiff of Shri Panchayati Akhara Bada Udasin and national spokesperson of the Akhara Parishad, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) - eight years after he went missing, while travelling from Haridwar to Mumbai. Justice Pankaj Purohit delivered the order on Wednesday while hearing a criminal writ petition filed by Mahant Sukhdev Muni, member of Akhara Parishad, who had sought a CBI probe into the case, citing the prolonged failure of the state police to trace the missing spiritual leader. Gopal K Verma, the petitioner's counsel, said that Mahant Mohandas went missing on September 16, 2017, while travelling from Haridwar to Mumbai by the Lokmanya Tilak Express. He was last seen at Meerut railway station, after which his whereabouts remain unknown. A first information report (FIR) under Section 365 of the Indian Penal Code (kidnapping) was registered at Kankhal police station in Haridwar the following day. During the hearing, the state government submitted that the investigation had been handed over to the Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) in October 2023 and that the agency was pursuing the case....