NEW DELHI: A day after the Calcutta High Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register a case in West Bengal’s Birbhum massacre, the Central probe agency has named 21 suspects in its FIR.
In Birbhum’s Bogtui village, eight people, including women and children, were killed after miscreants set ten houses ablaze, which led to a massive outcry across the country.In its FIR, the CBI, which took over the case on Friday night, stated that preliminary enquiry revealed that the violence was meted out in “retaliation” to avenge the murder of Bhadu Sheikh, who was the Trinamool Congress ‘up-pradhan’ of the local panchayat. He was allegedly attacked with crude bombs by unknown assailants the day before.
Further, the FIR states that an “unruly mob of 70-80 people” ransacked the houses of the victims and set them on fire with a “view to kill the persons inside”.
The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the CBI to take over the probe.
On Friday afternoon, the CBI team visited the Rampurhat police station, took various files and documents related to the case and went to the site of violence along with the Central Forensic team.
A team of the CBI’s Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) collected samples for forensic examination and had a look at the houses gutted in the fire.
The CBI has named Azad Chowdhury, Irtaz SK, Mofizai SK, Ashim SK, Rana SK, Nazrul Islam, Azahar SK, Mortej Ali and several others in the FIR.