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CBI probes rape, murder in post-poll violence in 5 Bengal districts
The Calcutta high court ordered CBI on July 19 to probe the violence and asked the central agency to file its report in six weeks.
Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday recorded complaints of several families in five districts of West Bengal as part of its probe into post-poll violence, said officials aware of the development.
Officials said statements of at least two women who alleged rape were recorded as part of this exercise.
The Calcutta high court ordered CBI on July 19 to probe the violence and asked the central agency to file its report in six weeks.
On Monday, CBI officers visited North 24 Parganas, Bankura, Jhargram and Birbhum districts in south Bengal. A fourth team went to Sitalkuchi in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district.
In Birbhum, CBI recorded the statement of a woman who was allegedly raped in the Nanoor area. The probe agency also talked to officers of the Santiniketan police station but the state police personnel were not allowed to be present when the woman was questioned. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that she was raped because her family supported the saffron camp during the March-April polls.
Birbhum is a stronghold of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) which won 213 of the state’s 294 seats as compared to the BJP’s 77 seats. In Birbhum, the BJP could win only one out of 11 seats.
“The TMC unleashed a reign of terror after the polls,” said Dhruba Saha, BJP’s Birbhum unit president.
In North 24 Parganas, a CBI team visited the home of TMC worker Akash Yadav who was shot dead at Jagaddal on May 2. “I gave my statement to the CBI officers. I hope justice will be done,” said Sunita Devi, the victim’s mother.
BJP leader Arjun Singh, who represents the Barrackpore constituency in the Lok Sabha, dismissed the allegation. “The family is trying to divert attention. Our party was not involved in the incident,” Singh said.
In Jhargram, the allegations of a tribal family at Vadui village were recorded by CBI officers where relatives of BJP worker Kishore Mandi told the officers that he was killed by TMC workers.
A CBI team also visited several families in Bankura district to probe allegations of murder and rape but the officers did not talk to the media about these cases till Monday evening.
The CBI team in north Bengal visited the home of BJP worker Dhiren Burman in Sitalkuchi. Burman’s body was found inside a bamboo grove on May 24. The leader of the opposition in the assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, had alleged that he was murdered by TMC workers.
In Kolkata, the elder brother of Abhijit Sarkar, the BJP worker who was murdered by a mob in the city’s Narkeldanga area on May 2, handed over the victim’s mobile phone to the CBI on Monday afternoon.
“My brother took videos of the attacks carried out TMC workers before he was killed. Local police officers were caught in those videos. Abhijit also went live on social media using this phone. The police asked for the handset but my brother had hidden it. We suspected that the police would tamper with evidence. I have also submitted a letter that has details of the complaints we have against the Kolkata Police,” said Biswajit Sarkar.
