CBI affidavit links Anubrata Mondal to Bogtui carnage

CBI’s affidavit will be scanned during the bail plea, says Calcutta HC lawyer

Anubrata Mondal.: File picture

Tapas Ghosh, Snehamoy Chakraborty   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |    03.01.23  : The CBI on Monday submitted an affidavit to Calcutta High Court in which it claimed to be in possession of information to prove that Trinamul’s Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mondal was in touch with party leader and Bogtui carnage-accused Anarul Hossain before the March 21 massacre of last year. 

Sources said the CBI claimed in its affidavit that the agency had definite information that Anarul, then Trinamul block president, called up Mondal before the Bogtui incident in which 10 lives were lost. 

The CBI submitted the affidavit a day before the hearing of a bail petition filed by Mondal before a division bench headed by Justice Joymalya Bagchi.

The bail petition is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday and the affidavit was placed to oppose Mondal’s bail petition in the cattle-smuggling case.

Mondal is now lodged in Asansol jail as part of the judicial custody given by a CBI court in connection with a cattle-smuggling case.

“The CBI’s affidavit will be scanned during the bail plea,” said a lawyer of Calcutta high court. 

The Bogtui massacre on the outskirts of Rampurhat town in Birbhum district was a retaliation to the murder of Bhadu Sheikh, who was the Trinamul deputy chief of Barshal gram panchayat earlier on March 21 evening.

Anarul, then Trinamul block president of Rampurhat-I, was arrested by police for his alleged involvement in the arson that followed, directed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee when she visited Bogtui on March 24, three days after the carnage.

The CBI started investigations into two cases — Bhadu’s murder and the Bogtui carnage — after a Calcutta High court order.

On the CBI’s affidavit linking Mondal to the Bogtui carnage, Trinamul leaders claimed “political vendetta by the central agency”.

“If Anubrata had any link with the case, why did the CBI bring it up after almost a year? They have submitted multiple chargesheets in the Bogtui case. Our lawyers will certainly counter if the CBI tries to link him to the case,” said Trinamul leader and lawyer Malay Mukherjee.

Post-poll violence case

The CBI on Monday submitted an additional chargesheet against eight Trinamul leaders, including Sheikh Sufian and Abu Taher, in a Haldia court related to a post-poll violence case in East Midnapore’s Nandigram in which BJP worker Debabrata Das was allegedly murdered. Sufian was the chief minister’s election agent in Nandigram.  Taher was involved in the anti-land acquisition movement that led to the Left Front government’s ouster in 2011.

The court issued arrest warrants against four Trinamul leaders, including Sufian and Taher, for not cooperating with the CBI in the probe.