Kolkata: The “mysterious” death of 29-year-old student leader Anish Khan, a resident of Amta village in West Bengal’s Howrah, which led to widespread protests across the state, has put the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government on the back foot.
Anish, a leader of the Indian Secular Front (ISF), was a vocal critic of the TMC government and the Union government. He was a prominent face in various campaigns against the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).
On February 18, Anish was found dead in his room. His father Salem Khan claimed that four persons – all of them dressed in police uniform – barged inside his home after midnight on the same date, after forcing him to open the door. Three of them went upstairs and pushed Anish from the second storey of the house under construction.
On February 21, the state government formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the incident.
Khan’s father insisted that since the state police were allegedly involved in the death of his son, he had no faith in the SIT set up by the police to investigate the case. He has, therefore, demanded a CBI investigation into the incident.
According to news reports, he has also been demanding the arrest of senior police officers and a few TMC panchayat leaders in Howrah district.
The Calcutta high court had on February 24 directed a second post-mortem to be conducted in the alleged murder case under the supervision of a district judge. But the family had turned down the SIT’s proposal for a second post-mortem on the body of Anish in the presence of a magistrate amid allegations that the first one was done without following proper procedures.
On February 26, the police failed to exhume the body amid protests by villagers. Two days later, after taking consent from the family members, the police was able to take the body for the second post-mortem.
The family members had also taken part in a test identification, or a TI parade, at the Uluberia police station. A TI parade is done to identify the accused before the court. However, the accused, in police uniform, who had allegedly barged into the house, were not present there.
Till now, the police have arrested a home guard and a civic volunteer under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
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Opposition parties have also alleged that a section of TMC leaders were behind Anish’s murder. The West Bengal government has rubbished these charges.
According to BJP leader Dilip Ghosh, it’s “an eyewash by the Mamata Banerjee government to arrest two local police officers who are themselves claiming that they acted according to the order of the senior police staff”. The officer-in-charge of Amta police station is absconding. “We want answers from the Mamata Banerjee government,” he said.
Sujan Chakraborty, a CPI(M) leader, asked, “Why did the government arrest two local police leaders in the alleged murder of Anish Khan,” adding that the local police work according to the instruction of the senior police officers.
“The one who gave instructions should be arrested first. Just because the police officer who had given instructions is close to the state government, it has not arrested him. We want a clean picture of the entire incident,” he said.
Meanwhile, some political experts believe that the whole issue has been politicised by the opposition. Others feel that the TMC government should come out of this imbroglio and resolve this situation with a fair probe.
Asim Shahnawaz Shibli, professor of Maulana Azad College, said, “Anish Khan’s death is really unfortunate and we condemn it in clear terms. The fact is that the opposition parties, particularly the Marxist, are trying to disturb peace in the state; they are putting up hindrances before the course of the SIT investigation by the state government. The chief minister also wants the truth to come out and that is why she has ordered for an SIT and the Calcutta high court has also endorsed it. Now we are sure the truth will come out only if the families cooperate with the SIT members.”
When asked about the CBI investigation that was demanded by the family members, Shahood Alam, secretary of All India Milli Council, West Bengal, said: “The CBI conducted many investigations which did not bear any results. They could not unearth the truth behind the theft of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize. They could not find out the real culprits behind the Nandigram violence. So why this furore over a CBI investigation. We want the truth to come out and Mamata Banerjee till now is going in the right direction.”
Papiya Chakraborty, senior political analyst at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, said, “Anish Khan died under mysterious circumstances. The family alleged that Anish was killed by the police. The chief minister hastily constituted an SIT. The family blatantly refused to give anything, including the mobile phone of Anish, to the SIT and openly pitched for a CBI investigation. The district police is closely related and involved with the TMC. Nothing new in it.”
Biswanath Chakraborty, senior political analyst and professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, said, “People want a free and a fair probe on the death of a student leader, and the TMC government will go all out to investigate the matter as it is now a question of their image. Therefore, the matter needs to be seen when the SIT submits their report.”
