Anis Khan Death: Amta OC Sent On Long Leave
Kolkata, Feb 25: Amta police station officer-in-charge (OC) Debobrata Chakraborty, who had been quizzed by the SIT probing student activist Anis Khan’s mysterious death at his Howrah district home early Saturday, has been sent on long leave, a senior West Bengal police officer said on Friday.
Chakraborty, who was under the scanner ever since the sensational incident came to light, was asked to proeed on leave for an indefinite period, the officer said. The punitive action was taken after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) summoned Chakraborty twice and quizzed him about the death of the 28-year-old Indian Secular Front (ISF) activist. In another development, the district court at Uluberia on Thursday remanded two arrested suspects – Home Guard Kashinath Bera and civic volunteer Pritam Bhattacharya – to two weeks in jail custody. The duo, while being taken from a prison van to the court, told reporters that they had gone to Anis Khan’s house following a directive from the OC.
Both of them claimed they were innocent and were being made scapegoat. The Calcutta High Court on Thursday also directed that Khan’s body be exhumed from the grave for a second court-monitored autopsy under the vigil of a district judge. The post mortem report is to be submitted soon to the SIT, as well as the family of the victim and also to the court. Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, who gave the directive this after the matter was taken up as a suo motu petition by the court, ordered that the district judge will take custody of Khan’s mobile phone for the investigation. The Khan family had refused to hand over the mobile phone to the SIT. Anis Khan’s septuagenarian father Salem Khan and his eldest son Sabir Khan have been insisting on a CBI probe, saying they have no faith in the SIT. “If we find it is needed, we would move a higher court for justice because we have no faith in the SIT probe,” they said.
However, the Calcutta High court said the SIT would carry on the probe and submit its report in two weeks. The judge told the SIT to hand over a probe report to the court by the next date of hearing Alleging that Anis Khan was murdered, CPI(M leader and senior advocate Bikash Bhattacharya had claimed before the Calcutta High Court that the victim was “brutally manhandled” by four persons, of whom one was in police uniform and the other three in civic police dress. The advocate alleged that the student activist was pushed down from the second floor of his Amta home.
