TMC’s Hossain ordered Birbhum killings: CBI
Anarul Hossain, the former Rampurhat community block-1 unit president of the TMC not only ordered the March 21 massacre at Bogtui village, which claimed 10 lives, but also supervised it while keeping the police away, the CBI has said.
Anarul Hossain, the former Rampurhat community block-1 unit president of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) not only ordered the March 21 massacre at Bogtui village, which claimed 10 lives, but also supervised it while keeping the police away, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has said in its charge sheet filed on Monday at Rampurhat court in Bengal’s Birbhum district.
Lawyers and officers who went through the 1192-page charge sheet told HT that it cites eyewitness accounts, footage on security cameras at different locations, and statements given by two of the three women who died of burn injuries at Rampurhat Medical College and Hospital.
Now in judicial custody, Hossain was arrested by the state police at chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s instructions when she visited Bogtui on March 24. He was charged with murder, arson, rioting with deadly weapons and criminal conspiracy before CBI took him into custody.
At 8.20 pm on March 21, Bhadu Sheikh, the deputy chief of the local TMC-controlled Barshal gram panchayat was killed in a bomb attack near Bogtui intersection on NH-114A. This triggered a retaliatory attack called by Hossain, said the charge sheet which also mentions that he was seen at the Rampurhat hospital after Sheikh was rushed there before being declared dead.
CBI has filed separate charge sheets in the two crimes but said that they are linked. The agency has named four people as prime accused in Sheikh’s murder and 18 others, including Hossain, in the arson case.
CBI, which started probing the massacre and Sheikh’s killing following the Calcutta high court’s March 25 order, stated that Sheikh’s murder was the fallout of rivalry between him and his associates over dubious land deals, illegal businesses and share of extortion money.
Citing eyewitness accounts, the charge sheet says Hossain asked the mob to attack the homes of Sona Sheikh and Fatik Sheikh, specifically giving instructions to the mob that nobody should be spared, lawyers said.
A part of Bogtui village, barely 150 metres away from the bustling Rampurhat town, was attacked and the homes of Sona Sheikh and Fatik Sheikh were set on fire with petrol ferried from a local outlet in an e-rickshaw whose driver was held by CBI.
Six women, including an eight-year-old girl, Unmehani Khatun, were burnt alive that night. At 77, Nurnehar Bibi was the oldest victim. Among the others were 21-year-old Marjina Khatun and her husband, Sajidur Rehman, the only male victim of the carnage. The couple were married in January.
At least eight more homes were attacked but the families managed to flee. All ten victims belonged to the families of three brothers, Mihilal Sheikh, Sheikhlal Sheikh and Banirul Sheikh, and their relatives, Sona and Fatik Sheikh.
The charge sheet has raised serious questions about the role of the local police saying they took more than an hour to reach Bogtui although the distance between the village and Rampurhat police station (less than 1 km) can be covered in a few minutes by car.
Hossain has been accused of asking local police officers not to rush to Bogtui.
The charge sheet has cited witnesses who told CBI that Hossain assured the attackers that in keeping with his instructions, no policeman would enter the village for at least one hour.
Scrutiny of the March 21-22 diary entries at Rampurhat police station by CBI officers showed that it was 8.30 pm on May 21 when police received information about the attempt on Sheikh’s life. The officers reached the site of the attack 20 minutes later. Sheikh was dead by then.
The police station received information at 9.35 pm that some houses in Bogtui were on fire although the attack started around 9 pm according to statements given to the CBI by witnesses.
The police reached Bogtui at 10.05 pm, as per records although Rampurhat police station’s inspector-in-charge Tridib Pramanik and the sub-divisional police officer, Sayan Ahmed, were at Bogtui intersection at around 9.30 pm.
The two officers were suspended by the state government and subsequently questioned by CBI.
Birbhum superintendent of police Nagendranath Tripathi told HT on March 31 that it could not have taken the police 30 minutes to reach the village from Bogtui intersection where Sheikh was killed. Tripathi said: “That is why two officers were suspended.”
The CBI charge sheet has also focused on the role of the fire brigade.
Two fire tenders reached Bogtui at 10.25 pm and the firefighters rescued four people from the house of Fatik Sheikh. One of them was Najma Bibi, the wife of Sheikhlal Sheikh. Two days before her death in hospital, Najma Bibi gave her statement to CBI which the agency has submitted as evidence against Hossain.
Several witnesses told CBI that when they called Hossain for help he said they would have to suffer the consequences of the attack on a TMC leader. The charge sheet mentions that Hossain deleted the call records from his phone to erase evidence.
The charge sheet says villagers alleged that the mob also tried to stop the firefighters.
According to records, the fire brigade team left Bogtui at around 2 am on March 22 although the flames in the worst-affected house of Sona Sheikh and his son Sanju Sheikh were not completely doused.
The firefighters returned around 7 in the morning and seven charred bodies were recovered from that house.
CBI officials and the Birbhum district police did not comment on the charge sheet which has triggered a political slugfest.
Samik Bhattacharya, chief spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bengal unit, said: “Anarul Hossain is too small a fry to plan and commit such a massacre on his own. It is obvious that he was carrying out the orders given by someone senior to him in the TMC hierarchy. Are we to believe that top district police officers did not rush to Bogtui just because Hossain asked them not to?”
TMC spokesperson Jay Prakash Majumdar countered the allegation.
Majumdar said: “If the CBI probe has put a full stop at Anarul it means the agency did not find the involvement of anyone else. It was Mamata Banerjee who ordered Anarul’s arrest and held her responsible for the heinous crime. What she told yesterday has been echoed by CBI today.”
