A cop hides during the police station attack

Police submitted in court on Friday statements of witnesses to the attack on Alipore police station that officers said were recorded on the day of the incident a week ago but surprisingly not included in the case diary.

The police’s act of omission, wilful or otherwise, invited a reprimand from the chief judicial magistrate who had twice heard the case before but didn’t know about the existence of the recorded statements.

“According to the date mentioned in the case diary, these statements were recorded on November 14. I had heard this case on November 15 and November 18 but I did not find this paper. Why were these statements not included in the case diary on the earlier days?” Sanjib Daruka, chief judicial magistrate of the Alipore court, demanded to know from the police lawyer.

Daruka was holding a piece of paper containing the scribbled statements of three witnesses from among the group that had barged into the police station and two sentries who said they had seen “prime accused” Arvind Vora shattering a glass partition.

Taken aback by the chief judicial magistrate’s observation, state counsel Sourin Ghoshal struggled for an answer to the question.

Buddhadeb Mukhopadhyay, the assistant commissioner overseeing Alipore police station, prompted from behind: “The previous investigating officer had kept it (the document) in his file. We included it in the case diary after November 18.”

Daruka apparently wasn’t convinced. “It is not my lookout who is in charge of the investigation. But I will have to ensure that no innocent person is sent to custody.”

The police already stand accused of arresting five persons not linked to the case and trying to pass them off as the main accused in the November 14 attack.

The sub-inspector who had been leading the probe then is known to be close to some leaders of the ruling Trinamul Congress. Saroj Praharaj, the additional officer-in-charge of Alipore police station, replaced him after the court’s criticism of the probe.

Metro had highlighted on Thursday how two workmates in the middle of a drunken argument in Chetla and three neighbours from Metiabruz allegedly found drinking by the roadside had been picked up on the night of the police station attack. But the five men didn’t know why they had been arrested until they were produced in court the next afternoon.

Chief judicial magistrate Daruka had asked the police that day why the accused hadn’t been booked under stronger sections of the IPC if they indeed vandalised a police station. On November 18, he granted bail to all five, saying that the case diary did not reflect their link with the attack on November 14.

The hearing on Friday was for the bail plea of Vora, a driver working for a government department as a casual employee and a resident of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy Colony.

Vora, remanded in police custody for four days, had been arrested on Thursday. He is the police’s first real catch since the protest at the colony that culminated in the police station attack.

The protest was against the PWD for trying to fence off a part of the encroached plot on which the colony stands.

“We have submitted in court CCTV footage and five photographs of Vora, two of them showing him smashing a glass partition. We also have footage of three others involved the attack. Their initials are NP, B and M),” said state counsel Ghoshal.

The police refused to give their full names, saying it would hamper the investigation. Sources said “NP” refers to Nagendranath Pandey, secretary of the colony.

Pandey was in court on Friday.

Asked why he hadn’t been arrested, a senior police officer said: “We can’t question or arrest anyone in a hurry.”