Damayanti was the intelligence chief of the Kolkata police at the time of the Park Street gangrape incident in 2012 and had investigated the case. (File) The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed senior IPS officer Damayanti Sen to oversee the investigation into four recent cases of rape that were reported in West Bengal.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj said that past experiences have shown that Damayanti, special commissioner of Kolkata Police, is capable of conducting an impartial inquiry into the rape incidents that took place at Deganga, Matia, English Bazar and Banshdroni.
The court directed Advocate General S N Mookherjee, representing the state, to file a report in the form of an affidavit in respect of the progress of investigation in all the above incidents on the next date of
hearing.
The bench also said if the 1996-batch IPS officer does not want to take the responsibility she can inform the court directly. The court will now hear the matter on April 20.
Suggesting the name of Sen for supervising the probe, the counsel for the petitioners submitted that taking into account her past performance and her independent way of working in earlier investigations, they have full faith that proper investigation will be done under her supervision.
The AG said that he has no objection to the same except that she may not have sufficient time to involve herself in supervising the investigation.
Damayanti was the intelligence chief of the Kolkata police at the time of the Park Street gangrape incident in 2012 and had investigated the case.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had called the Park Street gang-rape a “fabricated incident”. Sen, however, had reported that rape had taken place and went on to make the investigation public.
She was transferred out of the city police in what was seen as a fallout of her statement.
Though the state called Sen’s transfer a routing affair,senior IPS officers said the “upright officer” had to pay the price for contradicting the CM and the then Kolkata police commissioner.
Damayanti Sen was subsequently appointed as the DIG (Darjeeling Range).
Sen’s posting in the Hills came at a time when the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has renewed their agitation for Gorkhaland and threatened that the stir could be a violent one.
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said he hopes that Sen would show the same courage to probe the rape cases that she had showed in the Park Street case.
“After the way she handled the Park Street case, we believe that she is an honest and dedicated police officer. We welcome the decision taken by the court,” said Majumdar.
Senior TMC leader and state minister Firhad Hakim said, “I will not comment on the high court order but I can say that the police are taking action in each and every case. Cases are registered and probed in all the
incidents.”
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