Munger, Jan. 4: Even as the Munger police prepare to pay tribute to former superintendent of police late K.C. Surendra Babu on his sixth death anniversary tomorrow, they have failed to put up a strong case against the Maoists responsible for the killing.

The local court, hearing Surendra Babu murder case, acquitted all the accused in the case after the police failed to provide sufficient evidence.

After five years of trial, the sessions trial (numbers 331/2007 and 429/2006) court acquitted Raj Kumar Das (38), Mangal Rai (54) and Bhola Rai (37) last year for want of evidence.

All the eyewitnesses in the case, mostly policemen, either turned hostile or failed to establish the involvement of the trio whom the Munger police claimed were “hardcore Maoists” and “masterminds” behind the incident.

“We have started working hard on filing an appeal in the high court against the acquittal judgment by the local court,” said superintendent of police M. Sunil Naik. He admitted that the police lost the legal battle because of poor investigation and weaker case.

The office of district magistrate, Munger, has already urged the state law department to complete the formalities of filing the appeal against the judgment in the Patna High Court but no one including the Munger district magistrate, Prem Singh Meena, has an idea whether the case has been filed or not in the high court.

Arun Kumar Singh, public prosecutor (PP), Munger, blamed the district police for its poor performance in the case. “It was a case of murder of an SP on-duty but not a single witness has named the accused nor identified the accused in the dock,” he said.

According to him, the then officer-in-charge of Lakshmipur police station, Jamui, Shamshad Ali, who had recorded the statement of the accused, has not been made witness in the chargesheet nor the conducting PP, Jogendra Mandal, had tried to examine the officer-in-charge as an additional witness for the reason best known to him.

Singh, in his memo of appeal to Munger district magistrate, underlined the failure of the police to provide eyewitness to the court and also raised questions on Mandal. Sources said Singh had also urged Meena to showcause Mandal for his part of negligence, which led to the humiliating defeat of Munger police. Meena was not available to confirm the showcause. Sources in the office said that for further proceeding, Meena could only urge the state law department. The department would approach the advocate general for taking initiative for filing the appeal at the high court, sources said. “Since the matter is now at the state law department and advocate general, we could not give any idea of the preset status of the case,” sources said.

On the other hand, Mandal lambasted Munger police and held it responsible for the incident. “I was the public prosecutor of the case. What can I do if the police fail to produce right witnesses? The law is based on facts not on sentiments or assumptions. I had tried my level best but when you don’t have any substantial evidence the law can’t hold any one as the killer,” Mandal said. “Without any proper groundwork, the police should not arrest any person,” he added.

According to the records of the court of first additional sessions judge, Munger, three accused were acquitted for the offences under Section 302/34 of IPC, Section 27 of the Arms Act and Section 3/4 of the Explosive Substance Act for lack of evidence.

The court of Prem Darshan Singh Diwakar, additional session judge, acquitted Rajkumar Das on February 24, 2010 and subsequently Mangal Rai and Bhola Rai on May 18, 2010. The three persons were earlier made accused by the police for killing Surendra Babu and five cops — Rudradeo Kumar Thakur, Md Islam, Shiv Kumar Ram, Md Abdul Kalam and Omprakesh Gupta. Surendra Babu, who went on raid jointly with the Jamui police, was returning to Munger when his car was blown up by a powerful landmine inside the forest of Bhim Bandh wildlife sanctuary.

Altogether, 22 separate witnesses, mostly police personnel, were examined on behalf of the prosecution during the session trials in the two cases. Many witnesses narrated the vivid descriptions of the incident before the court but did not identify any of the accused persons. “It appears from the perusal of the discussed witnesses that they have supported the occurrence as alleged in the FIR but they have not whispered about the name of the criminals,” the court mentioned in the judgment. The court also mentioned that many witnesses in the two cases failed to establish charges levelled against the arrested persons during the trials. Two inquest witnesses, Pramod Singh and Sudhir Singh, turned hostile during the trial.

Many of the witnesses have been now transferred from Munger and when The Telegraph tried to establish contact with some of the witnesses, they preferred to be tight-lipped. “I had already told before the court about the incident. Since the matter was old, I could not remember exactly. Please go to the court and take a look at the judgment copy, you will find everything,” a witness on condition of anonymity said.

“How can you accuse me of killing the SP or brand me a Maoist? The court has acquitted me as the charges framed against me were baseless. It was a unique example of police atrocity for which we had to spend more than five years inside jail,” alleged Rajkumar of Parsendo village under Havali Khraghpur police station. Mangal and Bhola were not available for comment.