Family members of the victims of the Birbhum violence while interacting with West Bengal CM on Thursday. (Express Photo by Partha Paul) The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the killings in Birbhum’s Bogtui village, where eight people were burnt alive earlier this week, and submit its preliminary report by April 7.
Following the conclusion of submissions by all parties in the last two days, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice R Bharadwaj directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the state government to probe the incident not to carry out investigation anymore and hand over the case files to the central agency. The court also told the state to hand over the accused arrested in the case to date to the CBI.
“The court has accepted the demand for an impartial probe. After hearing both sides, the court has ordered a CBI probe into the incident. The court has felt that there is a need to provide justice to the people,” said advocate and BJP leader Priyanka Tibrewal, who appeared as a petitioner in person seeking a fair investigation.
In November 2018, the West Bengal government withdrew the general consent that had been accorded to the CBI by the previous Left Front government in 1989. Following post-poll violence last year, the government moved the Supreme Court, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order directing a CBI probe into the alleged cases of murder and crimes against women. The government argued before the court that the agency’s actions were void ab initio after the state government withdrew the consent under Section 6 of the DSPE Act, 1946.
Eight people, including two children, were charred to death as nearly a dozen houses were set ablaze in Bogtui in Birbhum’s Rampurhat block early Tuesday in a suspected fallout of the murder of a Trinamool Congress (TMC) panchayat official. The SIT has so far arrested 22 people, including the TMC’s Rampurhat I block president Anarul Hossain.
Welcoming the court order, the BJP’s IT Cell chief Amit Malviya tweeted, “Grateful to the Calcutta HC for ordering CBI probe in the Rampurhat massacre. Mamata Banerjee’s admin and SIT constituted by the WB Govt inspired no confidence whatsoever. It seemed more like a means to cover up the crime and protect TMC leaders involved in the ghastly killings.”
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