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Family of Kolkata teenager who died at Visakhapatnam hostel files murder case
The murder complaint was filed a day after West Bengal minister Aroop Biswas visited the girl’s family at their Netaji Nagar house in south Kolkata on Sunday
KOLKATA: The father of the 17-year-old teenager in Visakhapatnam who died on July 16 filed a formal complaint with the Kolkata Police on Sunday, alleging that his daughter was murdered. Her father said the complaint was filed following state minister Aroop Biswas’s assurances of an investigation.
“We have lodged a complaint with Kolkata Police on the advice of Biswas. The chief minister spoke to us over the phone and has assured us of all help,” the father said.
Biswas visited the girl’s family at their Netaji Nagar house in south Kolkata on Sunday and facilitated a phone conversation between the girl’s father and chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Biswas later announced that a first information report (FIR) will be filed by the Netaji Nagar police station based on the family’s complaint and the state could consider entrusting the probe to the state criminal investigation department (CID). “The chief minister is concerned,” Biswas said on Sunday.
It is not clear yet how the West Bengal police can independently investigate a crime alleged to have taken place in another state, Andhra Pradesh.
The 17-year-old had been living at the Visakhapatnam hostel since May 2022 when she enrolled with a coaching institute to prepare for the medical entrance examination, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
Late on July 14, the hotel authorities phoned the family in Kolkata to inform them that their daughter had fallen from the building’s fourth floor and hurt herself. The family rushed to Visakhapatnam on July 15 and shifted her to another hospital for better treatment. She died the following day.
The family suspects that this was not an accident but a murder, and there were inconsistencies in the statements and the police report.
“After performing her last rites in Kolkata, we moved the Andhra Pradesh high court. The court after a hearing appointed a court commissioner to collect the CCTV footage and other documents,” said the girl’s father.
