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Woman, declared dead by CBI, turns up in UP court
A court in Muzaffarpur served a show-cause notice to CBI after a witness, declared dead by the agency, presented herself before the court.
PATNA: A court in Muzaffarpur has served a show cause notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for submitting a false death verification report of a witness, who presented herself before the court on Friday.
The Muzaffarpur court of the 1st additional sessions judge-cum-special judge, Punit Kumar Garg (MP/MLA case) served the notice to CBI in course of the trial of the journalist Rajdeo Ranjan murder case. Ranjan, 42, then bureau chief of the Hindustan newspaper in Siwan, was shot dead at a busy fruit market in Siwan town on May 13.
CBI had sought summons for examination of witness Badami Devi, which the court issued. However, later on May 24, CBI declared Badami Devi dead and also submitted her death verification report before the court.
Surprised, Badami Devi presented herself before the court with her documents and affidavit. “I have been staying in my Kasera Toli residence in Siwan. I was made a witness in the case but no CBI official met me. Instead, it declared me dead, which I got to know through newspapers. It points to a conspiracy,” she said in her affidavit.
“The act of the premier institution of investigation appears to be suspicious. Now there is no hesitation to say that CBI has done this kind of work in connivance with another witness Virendra Pandey, with whom the case of Badami Devi is going on. It is submitted that CBI is playing a big game to implicate falsely the accused persons, especially Vijay Kumar and Azharuddin Beig alias Laddab Miya,” the petitioners’ counsel Sharad Sinha said.
He said that it was shocking how an agency like CBI submitted a false death verification report of a witness who was there before the court today. “Badami Devi submitted her photo, PAN card and voter I-card. This is strange in part of CBI. I have made my submission before the court, which was also surprised and served a show-cause notice to CBI,” he added.
On May 17, 2016, the Bihar government had recommended journalist Rajdeo Ranjan murder case to CBI for probe. CBI registered the case on September 15, 2016.
His wife Asha Ranjan had requested a CBI probe to punish the guilty involved in the crime. CBI quizzed former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) member of Parliament (MP) late Mohammad Shahabuddin in the case. Shahabuddin, however, claimed that he was in jail when the incident took place but later refused to undergo a ‘lie-detection’ test.
Asha Ranjan told HT that CBI had filed charge sheet against six accused including Shahabuddin, Laddan Mian alias Azharuddin Beg, Rishu Kumar Jaiswal, Rohit Kumar Soni, Vijay Kumar Gupta, Rajesh Kumar and Sonu Kumar Gupta with 96 witnesses. To date, CBI produced only 24 witnesses while four of them turned hostile.
