THE CBI on Monday filed its status report before the Calcutta High Court in connection with the alleged gangrape and death of a minor in Nadia district.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj took on record the progress report filed by the CBI indicating the steps the central investigation agency undertaken in the investigation. The court also perused the progress report and handed it back to the CBI.
The girl died on April 5, a day after she was allegedly gangraped by the son of a TMC panchayat member.
The CBI recently arrested the local TMC leader and father of the main accused in the alleged gangrape and death of the girl as he allegedly played an “active role” in tampering with evidence and intimidating her family members. This took the total arrests in connection with the incident to eight.
Meanwhile, a plea was filed before the court seeking transfer of the criminal case from Nadia to Kolkata for the sake of a “free and fair” trial. To this, the Chief Justice remarked that the counsel should first indicate some material to show that a free and fair trial is not possible without transferring the case from Nadia to Kolkata. Accordingly, the court directed the petitioner to supply legible copies of the petition to all the parties concerned. Response to the plea was also ordered to be filed before the next date of hearing, which is slated to take place on May 20.
The court had earlier allowed for the filing of a witness protection application before the competent authority as specified under the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 to protect the family members of the victim in the case.
Meanwhile, the CBI also filed its second progress report before the Calcutta High Court in connection to the investigation into the violence in Birbhum’s Bogtui, in which eight persons were killed allegedly in retaliation to the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.
The court had earlier detected the CBI to investigate the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh that was followed by arson at Bogtui village in Rampurhat that killed eight people, including two children. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj today took on record the status report filed by the CBI.
,