Garbeta skeleton case: Process of framing charges against accused starts

The process of framing charges against the accused in connection with the Benachapra skeleton recovery case has

been initiated at Midnapore Court on Saturday.

Seven Trinamool Congress workers were abducted, killed and buried in a pond in 2002. The skeletons were recovered from near former CPI(M) MLA and

minister Sushanta Ghosh's ancestral house at Benachapra near Garbeta in June 2011.

Ghosh and most of the accused were arrested. Ghosh was later released on bail. Sixteen of the 58 persons whose names had appeared in the charge-sheet were arrested before it was filed. On June 15, 2016, CPI(M) leader Sudarshan Koley, who was absconding for

the past five years, was arrested in this connection.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had filed a charge-sheet with the court against 58 persons including Ghosh and many other leaders and workers of the party on September 23, 2011. Apart from Ghosh, his former personal secretary Debashis Pyne's name had also appeared in the charge-sheet.

For certain reasons, the hearing in connection with framing of charges had been postponed number of times. Finally, the process of framing charges has started at the Fourth Additional District and Sessions Court on Saturday.

Ghosh and others, whose names appeared in the charge-sheet were present in the court on

Saturday. The next date of hearing in this connection has been fixed at May 20.

It may be recalled that Ghosh was even attacked by the father of one of the victims of when he went to Midnapore Court on May 26, 2016. Manoranjan Singh, the father of one of the victim Swapan Singh, had attacked Ghosh to take revenge of his son's murder. He accused Ghosh as the key person behind his son's murder.

Singh had also accused him of saying that he was the head of the harmads and he had killed many people and tortured women.