The Calcutta High Court has ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the murder of TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh. Earlier Birbhum, Rampurhat violence case was also handed over to CBI.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj said that it is prima facie of the view that the murder of Sheikh and massacre of nine people are “inter-linked”.
As many as nine people were killed in the Rampurhat area of West Bengal’s Birbhum last month after a mob allegedly set houses on fire following the killing of TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh. As per the FIR, most of the houses were completely gutted and also were found to have been ransacked.
The Calcutta High Court has directed the CBI to conduct a probe into the massacre. Earlier, an SIT formed by the West Bengal government was probing the case.
On Thursday, the CBI sleuths nabbed four West Bengal residents from Mumbai for their alleged involvement in the Birbhum killings. These were the first arrests made by the central agency since it took over the probe.
The four accused had fled from Bogtui to the Maharashtra capital soon after the killings, and they were apprehended from their hideout early on Thursday morning.
“Of the four arrested accused, two persons – identified as Bappa and Shabu Sheikh – were named in the FIR lodged in connection with the killings. We will produce them before a court in Mumbai and plea for a transit remand to West Bengal,” he said.
The CBI also moved a local court on Wednesday to seek permission for conducting polygraph tests on eight people arrested in the case, including TMC leader Anarul Hossain.
The agency said polygraph test is necessary to take forward the investigation.
“We need to double check what Hossain and others have been telling us during the course of their interrogation,” the CBI official said.
