E-Paper
Mamata Banerjee upset with cops over twin murder case; CID probe ordered
West Bengal chief secretary HK Dwivedi said the investigations into the murder case have been handed over to CID and two police officers suspended.
KOLKATA: The West Bengal government has ordered a probe by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the murder of two school students at Baguihati near Kolkata and suspended two police officers on charges of negligence.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was upset with the role of the local police and expressed her displeasure at an administrative meeting held at the state secretariat today, said a senior government official who attended the meeting.
“The investigation has been handed over to the CID. The officer in charge of Baguihati police station and the investigating officer of the case have been suspended,” said HK Dwivedi, state chief secretary after the meeting.
Two teenage boys went missing on August 22 from Baguihati area under Bidhannagar police in North 24 Parganas. Their bodies were found on August 23 and 25 at two locations in Basirhat, an adjacent police district. The Baguihati police, however, came to know of the twin murders on Monday when one of the attackers was arrested. All these days, the bodies were lying as unclaimed bodies in the police morgue at Basirhat.
Four people have been arrested in the context of the murder. The prime accused and his associate are still missing.
“The chief minister is personally looking into the matter. I met the two families on the orders of the chief minister. The culprits will be arrested soon. We have assured the families of all help,” said Bengal minister Sujit Bose.
The families of the two teenage victims, Atanu Dey and Abhishek Naskar, however, demanded a CBI probe, saying that they have lost faith in the state police.
“We have lost all faith in the police. We want a CBI probe,” said Hari Naskar, father of Abhishek.
The families earlier complained that the police were reluctant to file a complaint when they first reported the two cousins missing. The FIR was lodged two days later, on August 24.
“We approached the police on August 22 but they did nothing. They told us to wait as teenagers often go out with friends. It was only two days later that they registered an FIR but still did nothing,” Abhishek’s mother Kamala Naskar told the media on Tuesday.
Political leaders of BJP and CPIM also went to meet the families even as the BJP staged a protest outside the local police station.
