CBI, a pet dog of the centre

Parag murder accused freed
- Court blames CBI for lack of evidence
A STAFF REPORTER
Guwahati, July 28: Thirteen years after journalist Parag Kumar Das was shot dead in broad daylight by suspected Sulfa men, a district court acquitted the lone surviving accused, Mridul Phukan, for want of evidence.

Announcing the verdict to a packed courtroom, the Kamrup district and sessions judge, Dilip Kumar Mahanta, pulled up the CBI for inefficient investigation.

Senior advocate Nekibur Zaman, who was present when the verdict was delivered, said the court observed that the CBI had faltered in the investigation, which weakened the prosecution’s case, leading to the accused walking away scot-free.

Mediapersons were not allowed inside the courtroom.

“The judge maintained that because of wrong investigation and failure of the CBI to collect material evidence, it failed to establish the case,” Zaman said.

Several witnesses who were examined by the CBI later declined to appear before the court fearing for their lives.

“The court wondered why the CBI failed to provide protection to those witnesses,” Zaman said.

“Not only the CBI, even the police ignored crucial evidence during a initial stage of the probe, which eventually weakened the case. One may be surprised to know that the police had not even collected the blood-stained clothes of the victim and empty cartridges from the spot,” he added.

Das, who was the executive editor of a vernacular daily, Asomiya Pratidin, was shot dead on May 17, 1996, just after he had picked up his five-year-old son from school at Rajgarh Road in Chandmari.

The state government handed over the investigation to the CBI, which filed a chargesheet against four surrendered Ulfa men on November 24, 2000, two of them posthumously.

Of those chargesheeted, Biswajit Saikia, alias Tapan Dutta, and Diganta Kumar Baruah were killed before the chargesheet was filed while another accused, Nayan Das, alias Guli, was killed while the trial was pending in court.

Two other suspects in the murder case — Promode Gogoi and Prabin Sarma — were not chargesheeted by the CBI for lack of evidence.

“The CBI could not even prove that Phukan, alias Samar Kakati, was in Guwahati at the time of the crime,” defence counsel Syed Ikram Rasul said today.

“Moreover, two school students — Ritu Paban Deka and Jyotirmoy Borpujari — who the CBI had claimed had identified Phukan from his photograph as one of the assailants later failed to identify the man in the dock. On these grounds, the court acquitted the accused today,” Rasul added.

The judgment drew harsh criticism, with the Manab Adhikar Sangram Samity (MASS), a human rights organisation of which Das was the secretary general, calling a statewide 12-hour bandh from 6am on July 30.

“The government machinery was involved in the murder as Das was a vocal critic of its wrong policies. Though the CBI chargesheeted Phukan, he was never arrested by the investigating agency. The CBI has lost its credibility,” the secretary general of the rights panel, Aditya Lahkar, said.

Soon after the verdict, a few placards screaming “Shame, Shame CBI” appeared outside the court premises where a large number of people stood waiting.

For Phukan’s supporters, on the other hand, it was a burst of jubilation.

One of his supporters greeted Phukan with a gamocha as he walked out of the courtroom. They soon broke into a brief jig outside the court premises before driving away in a fleet of cars.

Another case of bungling by the CBI.
Another case of a murderer going scot free because of the investigating agency.
Normally the people have no faith in the state police and demand a CBI inquiry in the hope that justice would be done.
However, the CBI too has its own axe to grind.
It is controlled by the centre and when a state government in power is of the same party as the cetre, then naturally the centre imposes its will on the CBI to protect the state government.
When will this nexus between politicians and criminal end?