Oct. 10: The Bengal police today stirred another controversy after officers were found removing items from the blast site in Burdwan on a day the National Investigation Agency (NIA) formally took over the Khagragarh probe.
An assistant sub-inspector from the Burdwan police station, Pulak Mondal, entered the flat where the blast took place on October 2 and left the place carrying with him several items in a bag around the same time the NIA representatives met their CID counterparts in Calcutta.
The central agency also registered an FIR and obtained the court’s clearance to conduct searches.
Sources said Mondal picked up a pair of gloves, a blood-stained shirt, ground glass, a sample of chemicals strewn inside the flat and a few pieces of wire. Eyewitnesses said Mondal walked into the flat around 11.30am and was inside for around 10 minutes.
The Bengal police had earlier faced severe criticism for blowing up all the explosive material recovered from the Khagragarh flat on the banks of the Damodar allegedly without following the standard operating procedure for disposing of such substances in the event of a fatal blast.
“These items have been collected for forensic tests at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory,” said Akash Munshi, a sub-inspector of the Burdwan police station who was also the first investigating officer of the case before the CID took over.
“We have not received any intimation that NIA has taken over the case. So we will continue to assist the CID and there is nothing wrong in it,” Munshi said. “We will visit the site again with members of the bomb squad and as a reporter you can come along,” he told journalists.
Irrespective of whether the local police at Burdwan was or was not informed of the NIA taking over the probe, what struck a section of officers was the speed with which the gathering-up evidence took place this morning.
“Even yesterday, no one felt the need to open the lock and pick up some of the items for tests,” said another officer of the police station. “Suddenly this morning, Mondal was asked to go.”
The information came as a shock to the NIA top brass in Calcutta. Late in the evening, some senior NIA officers wondered how someone could visit the flat where the blast had taken place when the home ministry had already directed the central agency to take up the probe. “We are not aware of this,” an NIA officer in Calcutta said, referring to this morning’s incident. “This can’t happen. We would take it up with the CID as well.”
Earlier, an NIA team had met CID officers to collect the FIR that the state agency had drawn up on the blast. The team met Ramphal Pawar, assistant DG of the CID, and other officers for over three hours to complete the formalities of taking over the case.
Immediately after, a message was sent to the NIA headquarters in New Delhi where a case was registered under the same sections that the Bengal government had slapped following a nudge from the Centre earlier this week. Besides attempt to murder, the other charges under the IPC include criminal conspiracy and negligence in handling explosive substances, apart from provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Explosives Substances Act.
