Electronic evidences crack murder case

Kolkata: Three persons were convicted for murder at the Barrackpore Fast Track Court IV on Thursday. The court said this was a rare case, in which electronic evidences played a significant role to crack a conventional crime such as murder. The quantum of punishment will be announced on April 24.

According to the Public Prosecutor Bibhas Chatterjee, in such cases witnesses play an important role during the trial process. But in this case electronic evidences were found to be helpful.

Strangely, the Investigating Officer of the case, Kamal Krishna Chakraborty, had suddenly gone missing just before he had to appeared before the court. Later, after almost one-and-a-half month Chakraborty was found in a mental hospital.

On January 20, 2018 afternoon, Abhishek Chowbey alias Prince, who was a minor, left his home at Puwasha Para in Jagaddal to attend tuition classes. Before leaving home, he told his mother Renu Devi that he was going to attend the classes with his friends. But Chowbey did not return home. Around 9:45 pm, on the same day, Chowbey's brother-in-law Sushanta Shaw, who runs a dance school in Delhi, got a call from Chowbey's mobile number.

The caller told him that he had kidnapped Chowbey and will release him for a ransom of Rs 10 lakh.

On January 21, Chowbey's mother lodged a complaint against in this regard at the Jagaddal police station. During the investigation the cops were able to trace Chowbey until his body was found in the Ganga river on January 30, last year.

His body was fished out near Uttarpara and Shaw identified the body. After the autopsy examination, doctors said that he had been strangulated to death and later thrown into the water.

Following the recovery of his body, police nabbed three accused persons with whom Chowbey went out on January 20.

The trio identified as Md Wakil, Jahid Hussain, and Md. Sarfaraj are Jagaddal residents. Police found Chowbey's mobile phone from one of the accused persons.

During investigation, police officers came to know that Chowbey was killed on the day of his abduction.

He was taken to Jubilee Bridge in Naihati and strangled to death. Later, his body was thrown into the river.

But to prove that he was alive to get the ransom amount, accused persons had used his phone number and accessed his Facebook account through Chowbey's mobile phone.

During the trial prosecution Chatterjee submitted various evidences such as call details and mobile tower locations of Chowbey from the time he was missing.

Also, the Internet Protocol (IP) address provided by the Facebook authority on the request from the police proved that the trio had accessed Chowbey's Facebook profile to show that he was alive.

On Thursday, magistrate Tapas Mitra of Fast Track Court IV in Barrackpore pronounced the trio guilty under sections 302 (murder), 201(destruction of evidence), 365 (kidnapping), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (common intention) of IPC along with 66 (Hacking) 66C (online identity theft) of the Information Technology Act.

Chatterjee being a cyber lawyer and public prosecutor has successfully done consecutive five convictions consecutively including this case.