Out of 2,877 post-poll violence plaints, 1,356 are fake: State tells Supreme Court
KOLKATA: In a written statement submitted before the Supreme Court, the Bengal government maintained that out of 2,877 complaints related to post-poll violence, as many as 1,356 have been found false.
The state government also claimed that as many as 1,429 cases had been initiated by the West Bengal Police. A total of 8,852 persons had been named as accused, the state claimed. According to the state government, the number of arrests/persons surrendered or enlarged on bail is 5,154. Notices were served under Section 41A CrPC to 2,989.
The state added that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) acted with bias in alleging that only a handful of arrests were made. It further claimed that the percentages of arrests/persons surrendered or enlarged on bail comes to approximately 58 per cent and not less than 3 per cent as alleged by the NHRC panel.
The Bengal government submitted the note to the Apex Court in its appeal against the previous order of a five-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court. On August 19, the High Court had transferred the probe into alleged cases of post-poll violence to the Central Bureau of Information (CBI).
On Monday, the Supreme Court had adjourned the hearing in the matter to September 28. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Bengal government, had submitted before a Bench, comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Aniruddha Bose, that in one of the alleged murder cases, the man who is said to be a victim was still alive.
Earlier, the Calcutta High Court had also directed the constitution of SIT comprising IPS officers of the Bengal cadre — Suman Bala Sahoo, Soumen Mitra and Ranveer Kumar — to probe into various criminal cases other than those related to murder, rape and crimes against women. Both the CBI and SIT will submit status reports to the court within six weeks.
On September 3, the Calcutta High Court appointed retired Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Manjula Chellur to head the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the Bengal post-poll violence.
