More shame for Alipore cops in court

KOLKATA: First they cowered under tables and used case files as shields as a mob of slum dwellers stormed their police station and rained blows on them. Then they picked up five persons unconnected to the case and put them behind bars. On Tuesday, Alipore Police could not produce any supportive evidence to justify the arrests in court resulting in all the accused getting bail.Worse, chief judicial magistrate Sanjib Daruka came down heavily on them for shoddy handling of the case.
“There is nothing in the case diary. The arrests were done on the spot. The seizure list has no connection with the arrest. Neither is there any account of witness,” the CJM said before granting the bail.
In their haste to pin blame on the five, the police had slapped seroius charges — rioting, assaulting public servants, unlawful assembly — on them even though they didn’t figure in the video footage of the police station attack on November 14. In fact, Md Pappu, Sk Razzak, Md Shakil, Chhotu Shaw and Somen Banerjee hail from far off places and had nothing to do with the stir by Bidhan Colony residents over the fencing of a government land on Alipore’s Thackeray Road.
When public prosecutor Sourin Ghosal couldn’t submit a single peice of evidence to justify the arrests, the CJM asked, “Why do you further investigation? Where is the link between the crime and the accused?”
The CJM had expressed surprise even on November 15, when the police had first produced the five in court. The judge had then wondered why the police hadn’t invoked section 9 of Maintenance of Public Order Act and section 3 of Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act in a case where a police station had came under attack.
The Alipore police invoked the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act while producing the seizure list only after four days of the incident. The list includes shards of glass and broken bits of bricks. The public prosecutor mentioned the damaged collapsible gate of the police station, but that didn’t impress the CJM. The public prosecutor ran out of words when the judge asked why the prosecution needed the accused in custody.
The Alipore cops, in fact, brought the ridicule on themselves because they didn’t arrest the real culprits who enjoy the backing of the ruling party. Police came under pressure because the agitation was led by none other than Trinamool’s South Kolkata Youth Congress president Pratap Saha, a close associate of state urban development minister Firhad Hakim.
As he walked free, accused Md Razzak said, “We still don’t know why we were put behind bars. We were very scared when we learnt that we’d been framed in a serious case. We cursed ourselves for visiting a friend in Presidency jail. It was all in our naseeb (fate)?”