Curtains came down on Tuesday on the probe into the Susil Pal murder when the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted a chargesheet at the Howrah sub-divisional judicial magistrate?s court (SDJM) court.
A gynaecologist with Serampore Walsh Hospital, the body of Bright Street-based Pal was found in a canal off Sankrail, Howrah, on July 2.
Three days into the probe, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee handed over the case ? bearing an uncanny resemblance with the murder of Chandan Sen, a doctor from Ranaghat ? to the CID after the dead doctor?s wife called on him.
Tuesday?s chargesheet zeroes in on 13 persons, including Piyali Das, Biswajyoti Basu, Subha Narayan Ghosh and Jayanta Ghosh.
The last three were key CPM members in Howrah district till they were expelled following their arrest. Biswajyoti Basu was a zonal committee member. The chargesheet also indicts Piyali Das, nee Mondal, the woman whose child Pal had refused to abort, allegedly leading to his murder.
Apart from other charges, all 13 have been booked under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for murder and 120B/34, amounting to criminal conspiracy. The chargesheet, curiously, leaves out one man ? Pintu Hait, the driver of the Tata Sumo that guided the autorickshaw carrying Pal?s body from Bally to Sankrail.
CID officials turned up at the court around 3 pm and submitted the chargesheet before SDJM Raja Chatterjee.
Later, additional director-general (CID) R.K. Mohanty said the agency was content with having submitted the chargesheet, meeting the expectations of a large number of people, including the dead doctor?s wife Kanika.
Among others chargesheeted are Santosh Agarwal, owner of the chemist?s shop in Hooghly, that Pal was supposed to visit on the day of his murder, and Surendra Agarwal, owner of the Bandel nursing home.
The nursing home manager, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, too, was chargesheeted in the case, that left Pal?s colleagues at Walsh Hospital shaken.
Also on the chargesheet list are seven staff members of Sebayatan, the Bally nursing home where Pal was brought to diagnose Piyali, then five weeks and 20 days pregnant.
A reconstruction of the events leading to Pal?s murder suggests that on the morning of July 1, Biswajyoti Basu had sent for Pal from Konnagar, where he went in the morning to attend a private clinic.
Pal had reached Konnagar by train from Howrah, and then to Bally in a green Maruti sent to fetch him. Sleuths believe that at Sebayatan, soon after Pal realised that Piyali was well into her pregnancy and there were hints of abnormality in the foetus, he refused to carry out an abortion.
This allegedly infuriated Biswajyoti Basu and, sleuths hold, he decided to beat up the doctor for daring to refuse the most powerful man of the area. Investigations have revealed that even before Pal was summoned, Piyali and Biswajyoti had discussed the fate of the baby, already diagnosed to be with Down?s Syndrome.
