SC upholds CBI probe into Dhaniakhali death

Setback: Apex court turns down state appeal against Calcutta HC for probe by the central agency. Calcutta HC ordered a CBI probe on a PIL alleging cops had illegally held Nasiruddin and took him to the police station where he was beaten to death.

In a major legal blow to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Supreme Court on Monday shot down the state appeal against the Calcutta High Court order that had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the unnatural death of a local Trinamool Conress leader, Kazi Nasiruddin, in lockup at Dhaniakhali police station on January 18.

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Rejecting the state appeal, justices AK Patnaik and Ranjan Gogoi said the high court had rightly transferred the probe from the state CID to CBI on May 13. The high court had ordered a CBI probe on a PIL filed through advocate Bikash Bhattacharya alleging that the cops had illegally arrested Nasiruddin and brought him to the police station where he was beaten to death at the behest of local Trinamool MLA Ashima Patra.

“Nasiruddin had internecine fights with Patra, who along with her henchmen had on August 26, 2012 forcefully entered his house and assaulted his family members and threatened them with dire consequences,” Bhattacharya had said.

Hitting out at the CID, the judges had said, “The state investigating agency failed to conduct the investigation in a fair and impartial manner and abrogated and derelicted its basic sovereign duty to investigate the crime.”

Indicting the CID for covering up the truth, the judges had said: “Apart from interrogating the local MLA only once, no steps had been taken by the investigating agency to unravel this conspiracy angle in the alleged crime.