30 mins to cover less than 1 km: Station diary shows delay by police in Birbhum
Nine people – six women, two children and a man -- died in the massacre that followed the murder of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Bhadu Sheikh on the night of March 21.
Kolkata: West Bengal Police took 30 minutes to cover less than a kilometre after they were informed that houses in Birbhum district’s Bogtui village were being set ablaze on March 21, police officers told HT on Wednesday, citing entries made in the local police’s daily diary. Birbhum district superintendent of police, Nagendranath Tripathi, confirmed the delay in the local police’s response and said it was the reason for suspending two officials.
Nine people – six women, two children and a man -- died in the massacre that followed the murder of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Bhadu Sheikh on the night of March 21. The massacre rocked the state, prompted the state government to suspend two officials and vow strict action, before the Calcutta high court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the probe.
Bogtui village is separated from Rampurhat town by National Highway 14 and is less than a kilometre from Rampurhat police station, which has jurisdiction over Bogtui.
According to police officers, who requested anonymity, the daily diary at Rampurhat police station showed that at 8.30pm on March 21, information was received about an attack on Sheikh. At 8.50pm, a police team reached the spot where Sheikh was attacked – an intersection located about halfway between the village and the police station – to investigate the attack.
At 9.35pm, an officer on duty at the police station received information that some houses were being attacked in Bogtui village and immediately alerted the team at the intersection. But the team reached the village – which was less than 500 metres away– only at 10.05pm, said the officers quoted above, citing the daily diary.
The police team then found houses on fire and called the local fire brigade, which arrived at 10:25 pm, said the officers, citing the diary entries.
Tripathi confirmed the diary entries and admitted that it couldn’t have taken anyone 30 minutes to reach the village from the intersection. He also confirmed that his officers were at the Bogtui intersection when the first distress calls came from the village. “That is the negligence of my officers and that is why two [Tridib Pramanik and Sayan Ahmed, the two men who were heading the local team that night] of them were suspended,” he said.
Some of the victims’ kin have alleged that arrested TMC block president Anarul Hossain prevented the police from reaching the spot. Hossain has been grilled by the CBI twice since Monday. Hossain, who was arrested on the orders of the chief minister, has claimed he surrendered under instructions from Mamata Banerjee, and was being framed. The Opposition has alleged that the police didn’t act that night under pressure from local TMC leaders, who were out to avenge Sheikh’s killing.
The officers quoted above said that the police diary further revealed that the fire engines left Bogtui at 2am on March 22 after dousing the fires. At 7 am, five hours later, they returned and seven charred bodies were recovered from the house of Sona Sheikh and his son Sanju Sheikh. Two fire brigade officers were summoned by the CBI on Wednesday.
Four people have been arrested for Sheikh’s murder, while 22 held for the killings in the village.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said the attackers and victims all belonged to her party. The villagers and relatives of the victims have alleged that Sheikh’s murder was the fallout of an old enmity with a rival group of the TMC over sharing profits from illegal sand mining and stone quarrying. Sheikh’s elder brother, Babar Sheikh, was murdered in the same village in January 2021.
When asked for a response, TMC Rajya Sabha member and national spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said, “We will not comment on this since the matter is under investigation.”
DGP Manoj Malviya has not talked to the media after March 23.
