Centre opposes West Bengal’s suit in SC, says CBI an independent agency
The state government had sought a stay of investigation in FIR registered by the CBI in cases of post-poll violence in West Bengal in pursuance of the Calcutta High Court order.
The ongoing tussle between the CBI and the West Bengal Police over the mysterious death of Lalan Sheikh, the prime accused in the Bogtui carnage, took a further serious shape on Sunday with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state serving a notice to the central agency.
Sheikh died in the custody of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on December 12 evening.
It is learnt that in the notice sent to the investigation office of the Bogtui carnage, Vilas Bala Madghut, the CID- West Bengal has sought answers to certain queries. In the notice, the state investigation agency has asked for an explanation of the cause of death of Lalan Sheikh in CBI’s Rampurhat camp office in Birbhum district.
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The CID has also asked the Bogtui investigation officer about the details of the security arrangements at the Rampurhat camp office when the death of the accused took place on December 12 evening. The Bogtui investigation officer has also been asked to submit all CCTV footage at the camp office to the CID.
According to sources, the CBI officer has also been asked to submit his report on the basis of the notice to CID at the earliest.
To recall, the FIR on the Lalan Sheikh death case naming seven CBI officers was originally filed by the Birbhum district police and later CID- West Bengal took over the investigation. However, CBI challenged the FIR at a single judge bench of the Calcutta High Court claiming that it was politically motivated as the name of Sushanta Bhattacharya, the agency’s investigation officer of cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal and who has no connection with the separate CBI team probing the Bogtui case, was included in the FIR.
Calcutta High Court’s single judge bench of Justice Jay Sengupta allowed CID- West Bengal to carry on the investigation, but without taking any cohesive action, including arrest of any of the seven CBI officers named in the FIR.
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