Birbhum violence: Calcutta High Court orders State to submit status report on probe; issues directions to protect witnesses, evidence

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed the West Bengal government to produce before the Court, the case diary/ report about the investigation into the violence in Birbhum district of West Bengal, in which 8 persons were killed allegedly in retaliation to the murder of local All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Bhadu Sheikh..A Bench headed by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj took into consideration the Advocate General's argument that the State's investigation should be considered and examined before taking a call on whether the probe should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or any other agency. "We at the first instance give an opportunity to the State to produce the case diary/ report about the investigation by tomorrow 2 PM. Report relating to investigation done until now to be produced by 2 PM on 24 March," the Court directed.However, in order to ensure that evidence on the spot remains intact and witnesses are protected, the Court proceeded to pass the following directions:- State will immediately install CCTV cameras with DVR having sufficient memory covering all angles of scene of occurrence and will do continuous recording until further orders. Cameras should be installed in the presence of District Judge, Purba Bardhaman district;- A team from CFSL, Delhi is directed to visit the spot of incident and collect the necessary material for forensic examination without any delay;- Director General of Police and Inspector General of Police in consultation with District Judge, Purba Bardhaman district should ensure that witnesses are adequately protected and not threatened or influenced by anyone;- Postmortem has already been done. If any remains, then videography of the same should be done and in the report filed before the court it will be disclosed as to whether videography for all postmortems has been done or not;The order was passed on a suo motu case initiated by the High Court as well as some public interest litigation petitions filed by certain individuals. The petitioners have sought transfer of probe to CBI alleging that the SIT constituted by the State is not impartial. .Sheikh, a TMC leader and upa pradhan of Boroshal gram panchayat, was killed by some miscreants on March 21 at around 8:30 pm.This led to a violent backlash in which around 10 to 12 houses were torched and at least 8 persons were burnt alive, Times Now reported.The State government responded by constituting a special investigation team (SIT). One of the petitions before the High Court stated that the SIT has already given many contradictory statements on the issue and that it will only act as a "slave of the ruling party"."The SIT will leave no stone unturned to cover up the issue," the petition stated.All media reports say that the violence took place at the instance of hooligans associated with the TMC, the plea added.During the hearing on Wednesday, the petitioners through advocate Phiroze Edulji, contended that there are two witnesses to the incident and one of them has died while the other is minor who is required to be protected.It was also submitted that eyewitnesses are being threatened and all the village residents especially men, have been forced to leave and therefore, there is a need to provide security to villagers.The petitioners also raised grievance against the credibility of the SIT constituted by the State.Advocate General SN Mookherjee submitted that the investigation is underway and the appropriate directions may be issued for the purpose of protecting scene of crime, witnesses etc.He has also submitted that the forensic team of the State has collected and is in the process of collecting the evidence which is being examined.It was his contention that unless the State is given an opportunity to produce report of investigation and court is satisfied that investigation is not carried out properly, there is no need to transfer the case to CBI or any other agency..[Read order]