Bhagalpur, July 15: The body of the missing Assam youth was found this morning under a foot overbridge near Kataria railway station six days after he remained traceless, prompting his relatives to question the much vaunted improved law and order situation in Bihar and the role of police in the case.
The throat of 25-year-old Pritam Bhattacharjee was slit with a sharp-edged weapon. Naugachia superintendent of police (SP) Jayant Kant said he received information about the recovery of the body at Kataria railway station in Bhagalpur district, about 260km east of Patna, around 7am.
A bright student from Silchar, Pritam was on his way to New Delhi by Awadh-Assam Express for a PhD enrolment exam. When the train reached Naugachia station, around 9km off Kataria, under East Central Railway on July 9, some youths fled with his bag containing his marksheets and a digital camera.
Pritam gave them a chase, but in vain. He went missing soon after.
Pritam’s cellphone was found in his pocket. His PAN card and driving licence were inside a wallet he was carrying. But the digital camera and the bag containing his marksheets were no where around. Sources said Pritam was killed around 12 hours before his body was recovered. It means Pritam was alive till Saturday evening — five days after he went missing — but the police failed to trace him alive. There has been no report of either any arrest or detention in the case.
Katihar superintendent of rail police (SRP) Sukhan Paswan said: “Active members of different criminal gangs operating in the region were quizzed, but nothing substantial tumbled out from their interrogation.” He said a police personnel had been sent to Guwahati to collect details of the passengers travelling in coach S10 of Awadh-Assam Express, in which Pritam was travelling.
“The interrogation of co-passengers will reveal what exactly happened with Pritam on the running train,” Paswan, who has been monitoring the investigation, today told The Telegraph over phone.
The SRP claimed that they tried their level best to recover the youth alive. “But unfortunately we did not succeed in our mission,” he said, adding that the perpetrators of the crime would not be spared.
Pritam’s relatives, who were camping at Naugachia after he went missing, got the shocking news around 9.30am.
“The Naugachia Government Railway Police informed us about the recovery of the body when we were about to have breakfast,” said Ram Mohan Bhattacharjee, one of the uncles of the deceased.
The anger against the Bihar police was writ large on his face. “It is a wrong perception that Bihar has changed. What sort of machinery is working here? What is the government doing?” he asked.
K.K. Purkayastha, another uncle of Pritam, blamed the law and order machinery for the death of Pritam. “They (the criminals) would not have done had they been afraid of the police. It proves that the law and order machinery has collapsed in Bihar,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks.
As the news of Pritam’s death reached his home on College Road in Silchar, around 364km from Guwahati, neighbours and relatives gathered to console his father — retired principal and Sanskrit teacher at Silchar Women’s College Sankar Bhattacharjee — and mother Utpala.
Sources said the family has arranged to perform the final rites of Pritam in Bihar.
