Patna, Jan. 29: The Bihar government is set to file a fresh appeal in the Patna High Court against the acquittal of the three accused in the case related to the killing of IPS officer K.C. Surendra Babu, posted as the superintendent of police in Maoist-affected Munger district, and five others in a landmine explosion on January 5, 2005.

Additional director-general (headquarters) Pramod Kumar Thakur today said the process of filing an appeal in the upper court against the district and sessions court order was underway.

The three accused — Raj Kumar Das, Mangal Rai and Bhola alias Bhopal Thakur — were acquitted by the district and sessions court in Munger for want of evidence.

The matter, however, remained under wraps for almost a year and the police officers decided to appeal against the verdict only when the leader of opposition in the Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui raised the issue on Friday.

Siddiqui raised questions over the failure of the prosecution to get the accused prosecuted in the court of law.

Thakur said that the evidence collected in the case was being evaluated before filing the appeal in the upper court. “It is not that all the accused have been acquitted. Only three out of the 13 have been acquitted while 10 others are still lodged in different jails in the state,” he said.

The ADG (headquarters) said that the inspector-general, Bhagalpur zone, has been asked to monitor the investigation of the case while deputy superintendent of police of Haveli Kharagpur A.K. Chandra has been assigned to probe the case.

“Those acquitted by the court were arrested after the incident. While two were arrested within a week of the blast, the third one was arrested later. Two separate chargesheets were filed in the court against the accused,” Thakur said.

The police achieved a significant breakthrough in the case after the arrest of a top ranking Maoist leader, Aghor Das, from New Delhi. During interrogation, Das revealed the names of the Maoists who had conspired in the killing of the then SP and also taken part in the operation.

Another important catch for the police was Karu Mandal, who disclosed how the entire operation was planned and subsequently executed by the Maoists operating Jamui, Munger, Sheikhpura, Bhagalpur and Banka districts.

Altogether 22 people were named as prosecution witness in the case. While 15 were policemen, five were doctors and two others were seizure list witnesses who had signed on the list of articles recovered from the explosion spot.

Initially, 40-50 people were made accused in the case. But after supervision, chargesheets were submitted against 35 accused in the court.

Surendra Babu was killed in a landmine explosion triggerred by the Maoists near Bhimbandh in Munger while returning to the district headquarters after an operation jointly launched by the Munger and Jamui police against Naxalites. The then Jamui SP Omendra Nath Bhaskar had a miraculous escape in the blast.