CBI to probe death of Trinamool leader whose killing sparked Birbhum violence
The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the murder of Trinamool Congress leader Bhadu Sheikh, news agency PTI reported.
Bhadu Sheikh’s death triggered apparent retaliatory killings last month – nine people were burned alive after their homes were set on fire – in Bengal’s Birbhum district. The high court had earlier also ordered a CBI probe into those nine deaths, which included women and children.
Prayers to transfer the case to the CBI were made before a division bench of the high court presided over by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava. It was argued that the two incidents – the killing of Bhadu Sheikh and the torching of houses in Bogtui village, in which nine died – were interlinked.
The Bengal DGP has said the Bogtui violence took place within an hour of the murder of Sheikh, who was the deputy chief of the local panchayat.
On March 25, four days after violence erupted, the same bench ordered that inquiries into the death of nine people be handed over from a Bengal government-appointed team to the CBI.
On Thursday the CBI team investigating the Bogtui killings arrested four people from Mumbai. Those were the first arrests made in this case.
All four hail from Bengal and were tracked with information passed on to the CBI’s Mumbai unit which apprehended them, an agency officer in Kolkata said.
The locations of the suspects’ mobile phones were traced to near Bogtui village on the day of the incident, the officer added.
Those arrested were identified as Bappa Sheikh, Sabu Sheikh, Taj Mohammad and Serajul Sheikh – all residents of Bogtui village.
Eight people, including two children, were burned alive after huts were set ablaze in Bogtui in a suspected fallout of the murder of Bhadu Sheikh.
A ninth person died while being treated in hospital.
On March 22 a SIT was formed to probe the case. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the village and ordered arrest, including party colleagues.
The killings sparked a massive political row too, with the opposition BJP and Congress both gunning for the ruling Trinamool and Mamata Banerjee.
Both opposition parties demanded imposition of President’s Rule citing ‘deteriorating law-and-order’ situation in the state. The BJP sent a ‘fact-finding’ team to the village that claimed the involvement of a Trinamool district leader.
Mamata Banerjee hit back at the report, calling it a ‘conspiracy’. “It is absolutely a BJP conspiracy… How do they know who all are involved without investigating?” she asked, pointing out the CBI had not finished its probe.