The Calcutta High Court has transferred the investigation into the violence at Birbhum district of West Bengal in which 8 people, including women and children, were burnt alive and members of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) are allegedly involved.
The court denied the request of the state government that the probe not be transferred to the central agency. An SIT was formed by the Mamata Banerjee government on March 22nd but the court expressed displeasure with its work.
The two-judge High Court Bench constituting of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice R Bharadwaj observed: "The case diary of the incident has been produced before us. We have minutely examined it. We find that though the SIT was constituted on March 22, till now there has been no effective contribution by the SIT to the investigation. It has been submitted that in spite of the fact that the police station is very near to the spot of incident, the police did not reach on time and persons trapped inside the houses kept on burning,"
The Calcutta HC took suo-moto cognizance of the case on Tuesday, March 22nd. It has directed the CBI to produce a report by April 7th.
The High Court also accepted a clutch of petitions asking for a CBI and NIA probe into the incident.
BJP Leads Charge Against Mamata Govt In West Bengal
The BJP, which is the main opposition party in the state, has agitated vocally on the issue, with its top leaders at the Centre including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah condemning the incident. Its state president Dilip Ghosh reacted to the development: “Everyone demanded CBI inquiry. Everyone knows that Mamata Banerjee constituted SIT to suppress the case. Innocent people are murdered but she is not accepting her government’s failure”
The Congress demanded President’t rule under Article 355 of the constitution, citing ‘complete breakdown of constitutional machinery’. Party MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to President in this regard on Thursday, March 24. He said in his letter that there were 12 deaths, all of the “minority community” (Muslims).
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