HC pulls up Bengal govt over tardy murder probe

The Calcutta High Court on Friday slammed the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government over the slow police investigation into the public murder of Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders Pradip Ta, and Kamal Gayen in Burdwan district last month.

The court handed over the probe to the Criminal Investigation Department of the state police and said it would monitor the progress regularly. Four Trinamool activists have been arrested in connection with the case.

In a stinging remark, a division bench of Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice S Chakrabarty asked the state government to ''stop blaming the past'' – read the previous CPI(M) government – for all the ills plaguing the state.

The bench admonished the administration when public prosecutor Debashis Ray and government pleader Asok Banerjee said they needed more time to submit the autopsy report. Virtually asking for a snub, Banerjee naively argued that it takes time to prepare post-mortem reports in Bengal, as ''it has been this way for the last 34 years''.

The bench was surprised at the argument; and the Chief Justice remarked that he had been hearing such pleas (blaming the past) for the last nine months (since the Trinamool Congress wrested power from the CPM).

Strangely, after the bench directed that the post mortem report should be placed before it today itself, the government hurriedly placed the post mortem report, which showed doctors had completed it on 23 February - the day after the incident.