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Birbhum massacre: Police took 30 minutes to cover 1km, shows diary entry
Birbhum SP has confirmed the diary entries and said that it could not have taken the police 30 minutes to reach the village from Bogtui intersection.
KOLKATA: The Rampurhat police in West Bengal’s Birbhum district took half an hour to cover a distance of less than one kilo meter (km) to reach Bogtui village on the night of March 21 after they received intimation of an attack, entries made in the policy daily diary revealed. HT has reviewed the diary and a senior district police officer has confirmed the entries in it.
At least ten houses were set on fire by a mob in Bogtui village, killing nine people, including six women and two children, in the aftermath of the murder of Trinamool Congress (TMC) deputy panchayat chief, Bhadu Sheikh. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the probe into the case after a Calcutta high court order on March 25.
The police officers, who spoke to HT on the condition of anonymity, said that the daily diary records the events of March 21 as follows: At 8.30pm, the Rampurhat police station received information that an attempt was made on the life of Bhadu Sheikh while he was sitting by the road with his associates and personal bodyguards at the Bogtui intersection which is located about halfway between the village and the police station. At 8.50pm, a police team reached the spot where Sheikh was attacked. In the meantime, he was declared dead at Rampurhat hospital after he was rushed there.
At around 9:30 pm, officials told HT that the Rampurhat police station’s inspector-in-charge, Tridib Pramanik, and the sub-divisional police officer, Sayan Ahmed, were recovering security camera footage to identify those involved in the killing of Bhadu Sheikh.
The dairy recorded that at 9:35 pm an officer on duty at the police station received information that some houses were attacked at Bogtui. He alerted the police team deployed at Bogtui intersection which is at the Bogtui intersection, the spot of Sheikh’s murder.
Only at 10.05 pm does the police team reached Bogtui village and found some houses on fire. They placed a call to the local fire brigade department, which arrived in Bogtui at 10.25pm.
The firefighters rescued four people from one house, belonging to Fatik Sheikh, all of whom suffered burn injuries. One of the four injured was Najma Bibi, the wife of Sheikhlal Sheikh. She died on Monday, the ninth to die in the violence.
Two days before her death, Najma Bibi gave a statement to CBI. Sheikhlal Sheikh, a relative of Fatik Sheikh, alleged on Monday that the arrested TMC community block unit president, Anarul Hossain, prevented the police from reaching the spot. Hossain has been grilled by CBI twice since Monday. Anarul Hossain, who was arrested on the orders of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has claimed he surrendered under instructions from Banerjee, and is being framed.
Birbhum superintendent of police Nagendranath Tripathi confirmed the diary entries and said that it could not have taken the police 30 minutes to reach the village from Bogtui intersection where Bhadu Sheikh was killed.
Admitting that his officers were present at Bogtui intersection, probing the murder, when they received news of the arson, Tripathi said, “That is the negligence of my officers and that is why two (Tridib Pramanik and Sayan Ahmed) of them were suspended.”
By 2am, the fire brigade team left Bogtui after dousing the fires. At 7am, they returned to Bogtui, and seven charred bodies were recovered from the house of Sona Sheikh and his son Sanju Sheikh, the daily diary recorded. Two fire brigade officers were summoned by CBI on Wednesday.
When HT team visited Bogtui on March 23, it found that the homes of Sona Sheikh and Fatik Sheikh are located within 30 metres of each other, on either side of the main village road leading to Rampurhat town.
Four people have been arrested till Wednesday for Bhadu Sheikh’s murder, while 22 have thus far been held for the killings in the village.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Sunday that the attackers and the victims all belonged to her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The villagers and relatives of the victims have alleged that Bhadu Sheikh’s murder was the fallout of an old enmity with a rival group of the TMC over share of profit from sand and stone quarries and extortion from transporters. His elder brother Babar Sheikh was murdered in the same village in January 2021.
