Student's death: Father fails to identify cops during TI parade

kolkata: Test Identification (TI) parade of the arrested Home Guard Kashinath Bera and civic volunteer Pritam Bhattacharya was conducted on Friday at the Uluberia Sub Correctional Home in connection to the death case of student, Anis Khan. However, Anis Khan's father, Salam Khan, failed to identify anybody, sources said.

Meanwhile, the mobile phone of Anis was handed over to the SIT on Friday. It will be sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) for examination.

According to sources, Salam along with his lawyer went to the Uluberia Sub Correctional Home in the afternoon. After the TI parade was over, Salam returned home and claimed that he was unable to identify anybody citing different reasons. Meanwhile, former OC of Amta police station Debabrata Chakraborty was again summoned by the SIT at Bhabani Bhavan for questioning.

Around seven other policemen were also called by the SIT, who were on duty at the Amta police station on February 18 night. On Thursday, Kashinath had claimed that they went to Anis's house as ordered by the OC.

Though Kashinath admitted that they had been to Kushberia village, Salam on Friday said he had seen one policeman in uniform. But, he was unable to confirm that Kashinath and Pritam were there on Friday night or not.

Sources informed that SIT members also questioned the policemen, who were performing night patrolling duty on the intervening night of February 18 and 19. Sleuths want to know the location of the night patrolling vans of Amta police station.

It may be mentioned that the Calcutta High Court had ordered second autopsy of Anis's body in presence of a Magistrate.

Meanwhile, the SIT may appeal for Kashinath and Pritam's police custody soon.

As per court's directive, the body has to be removed from the grave under the supervision of the district judge and autopsy has to be done. However, the court rejected the appeal of the family members of Khan, demanding a CBI inquiry into the death.

A group of lawyers, including senior advocate and CPI (M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, had made a plea before the Calcutta High Court seeking initiation of suo moto motion into the mysterious death demanding an inquiry by an independent agency. Khan, according to the family members, was killed by miscreants posing as cops at his house in Amta on Friday night.

On Wednesday Director General (DG) of the state police Manoj Malaviya said that some political parties were deliberately trying to obstruct the investigation. Malaviya said: "We had earlier said impartial investigation would be done. Based on the evidences gathered by the SIT so far, we have arrested a home guard, Kashinath Bera and civic volunteer Pritam Bhattacharya. But police are being obstructed there."

Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had also assured a fair probe into the alleged murder of the student.