Bengal student leader Anis Khan died of fall, not murdered, claims SIT
Salem Khan had alleged in his complaint that three men, who were dressed like civic police volunteers, and a fourth man, who was wearing a police uniform and carried a rifle, came to his house at 1.10 am on February 19. Anis was thrown off the second floor of his residence by the trio who appeared to be civic police volunteers
Student leader Anis Khan died of a fall from the second floor of his home in Howrah district on February 19, the special investigation team (SIT) of the West Bengal police said in its charge sheet filed at a district court on Monday. The SIT ruled out the allegation of murder by policemen raised by Khan’s family, officials aware of the development said.
The chargesheet was filed at the Uluberia court in Howrah district.
Lawyers monitoring the case said the chargesheet mentioned the names of five personnel of the local Amta police station, including officer-in-charge, Debabrata Chakraborty, who has been taken off duty since the incident. The document said the evidence pointed at dereliction of duty by these personnel. Two of them were arrested in February.
“I do not believe what the chargesheet says. I demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The charge sheet has been filed before I could submit my petition before a division bench of the Calcutta high court,” said the student leader’s father, Salem Khan, whose plea for a CBI probe was turned down by the single judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha on June 21.
Justice Mantha said he was satisfied with the probe by the SIT that had submitted an 82-page interim report in a sealed envelope on April 19.
The judge also directed that details of the report could not be made public and it was to be shared only with lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, on whose petition the court took suo motu cognizance of the case on February 21, two days after Anis Khan died at Sarda village in the Amta area of Howrah.
Bhattacharya told the court in April that an effort was being made by the SIT to prove that Anis, 27, died by suicide.
Salem Khan had alleged in his complaint that three men, who were dressed like civic police volunteers, and a fourth person, who was wearing a police uniform and carried a rifle, came to his residence at 1.10 am on February 19. Anis was thrown off the second floor of his residence by the three men who appeared to be civic police volunteers, Khan alleged.
Residents of Sarda village alleged after the incident that Anis had a quarrel with some civic police volunteers on the evening of February 20 when a religious event was being held in the village.
According to the chargesheet, the officer-in-charge sent the police personnel to Khan’s home for an investigation. According to police records, Anis was an accused in two criminal cases of which one was filed in 2017 under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
On February 23, the SIT arrested home guard Kashinath Bera and civic police volunteer Pritam Bhattacharya who were posted at Amta police station. Both alleged that they were made scapegoats. Debabrata Chakraborty, the officer-in-charge, was sent on leave for an indefinite period after he was questioned by the SIT.
Salem Khan failed to identify Bera and Bhattacharya during a test identification parade saying he did not see the faces of the three men who rushed to the roof on the night of the incident. He said he had only seen the face of the fourth man who was standing with him at the entrance to the house.
Anis was a former student of Kolkata’s Aliah University. He led agitations against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Howrah. He alleged on social media that he was facing threats from local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders for organising a blood donation camp last year.
Amid state-wide protests that followed his death, the SIT was formed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on February 21 with director general of police Manoj Malaviya as its head. The Calcutta high court allowed the SIT to exhume the body for a second post mortem.
Hours after the chargesheet was filed, Sabir Khan, the elder brother of the deceased, said: “We have no faith in the state police.”
The chargesheet fanned the political row that had been going on.
Samik Bhattacharya, chief spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Bengal unit, said: “The mystery behind Anis Khan’s death cannot emerge if the state police, who are the accused, probe it. The death has put a question mark on the credibility of the TMC government.”
TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said: “Opposition parties will never stop targeting the government. They should remember that even the high court expressed its confidence in the SIT’s investigation.”
Residents of Sarda village alleged in February that Anis became a target of some local TMC leaders after he shifted allegiance from the Student’s Federation of India, a frontal organisation of the CPI (M), to the Indian Secular Front (ISF) launched by cleric Abbasuddin Siddiqui of the famous Furfura Sharif shrine in Hooghly district ahead of the March-April 2021 assembly polls.
