By IANS
Kolkata : The West Bengal government will remove two police officers from their posts for their alleged involvement in the mysterious death of Muslim youth Rizwanur Rahaman, who had married industrialist Ashok Todi’s daughter, veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Jyoti Basu said Friday.
“Two police officers whose names have cropped up in the Rizwanur Rahaman case will be removed. Calcutta High Court is hearing a case filed by Rizwanur’s family members and action will also be taken against the two senior IPS officers after we receive the court judgement,” Basu told reporters after the CPI-M state committee meeting here.
Basu did not name the police officers. But informed sources identified them as Assistant Commissioner Sukanti Chakraborty and Sub-Inspector Krishnendu Das of the anti-rowdy section of Kolkata Police.
Rizwanur’s body was found beside a railway track with his head smashed on Sep 21.
His father-in-law, Ashok Todi, a prominent industrialist, and some senior IPS officers in the state are in the eye of a storm for allegedly intimidating the youth to opt out of the marriage with Ashok’s daughter Priyanka Todi.
Both the police officials had told Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers that they had merely followed instructions from their superiors while hounding Rizwanur and his wife Priyanka to opt out of the marriage.
Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee had last week said at a press conference that the police would interfere in cases where a marriage takes place between families who are poles apart in social standing.
On his statement, Basu said: “The police commissioner’s remark is in very bad taste. He should never have said that. The chief minister has listened to his statement on television and is very perturbed over it.”
Before his death, Rizwanur had mentioned the names of top cops like Deputy Commissioner (headquarters) Gyanwant Singh and Deputy Commissioner (detective department) Ajay Kumar besides Sukanta Chakraborty and Krishnendu Das as those who had harassed him.
Rizwanur was in touch with Sujato Bhadra of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), a human rights body, before his death and had given a written complaint about the harassment by these police officials.
The CID had submitted an interim report of the ongoing probe into Rizwanur’s mysterious death to state Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy Wednesday. Roy said senior IPS officials whose names were dragged into the case would be called at the appropriate time.
A copy of the CID report would be sent to the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC), official sources said.
The CID probe is underway concurrently with a judicial inquiry into the case.
Earlier the name of former cricketer Snehasish Ganguly, brother of cricket icon Sourav Ganguly, was dragged into the case after he admitted to introducing the Todis to Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee.