Express News Service
KOLKATA: A 30-member team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths, led by DIG Akhilesh Singh, arrived at Rampurhat in Birbhum to probe into the massacre claiming eight lives following the killing of a local Trinamool Congress leader.
Divided into two groups, the sleuths of the central agency met the members of the special investigation team (SIT) formed by the state government after the incident and visited the house at Bogtui village from where the charred bodies were recovered.
Late on March 21, several houses at Bogtui village were set ablaze in retaliation to the murder of a local Trinamool Congress leader and eight persons, including six women and a child, were charred to death. Police arrested 23 persons, including the TMC’s local block president whose name was dropped by chief minister Mamata Banerjee in public during her visit to the carnage site.
The CBI sleuths collected case details on Saturday. A team of 20 CBI officers examined the charred house from where seven of the bodies were recovered and worked with the experts of the central forensic laboratory to collect samples.
“We will collect statements of eyewitnesses. The murder of the local TMC leader will also be investigated because the massacre is said to be a fall out of it. We are working on a war footing as the high court has asked us to submit a report on April 7,’’ said a CBI officer.
The TMC, however, criticised the CBI probe into the worst carnage since Mamata Banerjee’s government came to power in 2011.
“The chief minister had formed the SIT and instructed the police to arrest the perpetrators and ensure exemplary punishment for them. The CPI(M) and the BJP are playing their political card on the bodies of eight victims. CBI probe was not ordered into the Hathras case and its likes. No leaders of the then ruling party visited the crime site in Nandigram firing and killing of villagers in Netai in Lalgarh. But chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited Bogtui and assured all government helps,’’ said TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.
The Calcutta High Court had handed over probe into the Bogtui village carnage to the CBI and reportedly directed the central intelligence agency to file a primary investigation report during the next hearing on April 7.
