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Birbhum killings: CBI makes one more arrest
An agency official familiar with the case identified the person arrested on Sunday as Bogtui resident Samir Sheikh
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday arrested one more person in connection with the March 21 massacre in which nine people were killed in Bogtui village of Birbhum district. The violence was allegedly carried out in retaliation to the killing of Trinamool Congress (TMC) panchayat leader Bhadu Sheikh hours before.
An agency official familiar with the case identified the person arrested on Sunday as Bogtui resident Samir Sheikh.
On Friday, the Calcutta high court had ordered the CBI to take over the probe into Sheikh’s murder. Before that, the agency was only probing the Bogtui massacre. Six of the deceased were women and two were children.
It is alleged that at least 10 houses were bombed and set on fire by Sheikh’s associates and relatives.
The agency had arrested four Bogtui residents from Mumbai on Thursday in connection with the massacre.
On March 25, a division bench of chief justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj had ordered a CBI probe into the massacre, taking the special investigation team (SIT) of the state police off the case although it had already arrested 22 people, including TMC’s Rampurhat community block unit president Anarul Hossain.
Hossain has said he surrendered to the police following chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s orders. The chief minister has stated publicly that the attackers and the victims in both incidents were TMC supporters.
5 questioned in Purulia murder
On Sunday, the CBI also questioned five police personnel at Jhalda in Purulia district in connection with the March 13 murder of Congress councillor Tapan Kandu, officials of the probe agency said.
Kandu was shot from close range in front of his associates and several eyewitnesses. His wife, Purnima Kandu, who filed a petition before the Calcutta high court demanding CBI probe, alleged that the police personnel, who were manning a security check point on the road during the murder, did not respond to the family’s request to rush to the crime scene which was within walking distance.
The five district police personnel — a woman sub-inspector, two constables and two home guards — were confined to their barracks on March 20 following charges of dereliction of duty during the murder on a public road.
CBI officials took them to the scene of crime. It has been alleged that a quick response vehicle of the police was parked closed to that location on March 13 but it did not move.
