HC stays murder trial after ‘dead’ woman walks

KOLKATA: Her nephew Soumya Biswas was murdered in July, 2013. Two years later, Manju Adhikari — the complainant — came to know that a court in North 24-Parganas had declared her dead.
On Thursday, the Calcutta high court stayed the trial and directed the police to submit the chargesheet after Adhikari’s counsel Phiroze Edulji submitted that investigation into the murder was getting affected due to this misrepresentation of facts.
Biswas (22) was extremely popular in Bongaon and was elected additional general secretary of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad run students' unions, of the local Dinabandhu College. It was his birthday on July 29, 2013 and he left home with one Rakesh Bairagi in the evening. A couple of hours later when Adhikari went to Bairagi's residence to look for her nephew she was told that he had left. Even as she stood there, she heard a scream. A short while later, she spotted Bairagi, his son Himanshu alias Himu and 2-3 others walking down the road. The Bairagis were carrying firearms. Adhikari was allegedly told that if she didn't leave the spot, she would be killed.
On the way back home, Adhikari met Sandip Debnath who claimed that he was witness to Biswas' murder but was not included in the list of witnesses. It later came to be known that Biswas had been shot in between the eyes. His mother, a cancer patient, died of shock a month and a half later.
The murder led to outrage in the neighbourhood and people participated in candlelight marches and vigils in his memory. Late on July 29, Adhikari went to the Bongaon police station to lodge an FIR. CI Chandra Sekhar Dash heard her version and made her sign on a blank piece of paper, assuring that her statements would be noted down later.
When Biswas' best friend Dipankar Ghosh went to the police station later to inquire about the dead youth, Dash dictated a version and made him write it down as the FIR on the blank page signed by Adhikari. Murder charges were then brought against one Sudipta Sarkar and Himu. The latter died soon after this but a search of his house led to the recovery of a pistol, cartridges and other incriminating evidence.
On December 10, 2014, based on a submission by an advocate the additional district and sessions judge, Fast Track Court — 2, Bongaon, declared that Adhikari, a witness in the case, had died on May 10 that year. On May 15, when Adhikari went to court to find out the progress of the matter, she came to know that investigation had culminated. Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag stayed the trial after Edulji stated that proceedings were unfair, tainted, malafide and smacks of foul play.
Adhikari had sought a CID probe but the trial court turned it down.