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The Telegraph report on atrocities at the Gurap home |
Calcutta, Feb. 18: Calcutta High Court today directed the CBI to take over the Gurap women’s home case from the CID, saying it was not “satisfied with the progress of the investigation”.
“The CBI is directed to conduct a probe into the death of an inmate at a state-aided home in Gurap in Hooghly. The CID is directed to hand over the papers to the central investigation agency forthwith,” Chief Justice A.K. Mishra said in the order.
The division bench criticised the CID for its slow probe into the case.
“This court is not satisfied with the progress of the investigation by the CID. It seems that the investigating officer did not apply his mind on a related matter of two other missing inmates, whose bodies were recovered from the banks of the Damodar,” Mishra said.
The investigating officer was not present in court today and another CID officer came with the papers relating to the probe.
Justice Jaymalya Bagchi, another judge of the bench, asked the public prosecutor: “Where is your original investigating officer?”
The public prosecutor replied: “He is out of state now.”
Justice Bagchi said: “Ask him to stay there. This court is going to hand over the case to the CBI.”
The division bench then passed the order.
Guria, 32, an inmate of the home for mentally ill women, had been missing since June 30 last year. Her body was found buried in the home’s premises and was exhumed by police on July 11, 2012.
The secretary of the home, Uday Chand Kumar, and four others were arrested.
The Mamata Banerjee government had handed over the case to the CID, which had arrested six more persons.
The CID had in its probe said that two other inmates had been missing. Bodies of the two were dug out from the bank of the Damodar in Burdwan’s Jamalpur, about 30km from Gurap.
Two weeks after Guria’s body was exhumed, Basabi Roy Chowdhury, an advocate of Calcutta High Court, moved a public interest litigation demanding that the CBI probe the case.
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