Calcutta police submitted a 113-page chargesheet in the Kurban Shah murder case on Tuesday, accusing eight students, a junior doctor and two canteen employees of NRS Medical College of brutalising the mentally unstable man to death.
Kurban, 28, had allegedly been taken to be a mobile phone thief, tied to a pillar on the third floor of the men's hostel and killed on the morning of November 16.
If convicted, the 11 accused of murder (Section 302 of the IPC) and common intention (Section 34) face a minimum punishment of life imprisonment. Another student has been accused of tampering with evidence.
Of the 12 names in the chargesheet submitted in the Sealdah court, nine are in judicial custody. Medical students Jasimuddin, Javed Akhtar, Anurag Sarkar, Yusuf Jameel, Arijit Mondal and Aurobindo Maji are among those arrested along with intern Abhishek Kumar. The two canteen employees named in the chargesheet are Kartick Mandal and Rabi Andia.
Three other students - Niraj Kumar, Roushan Kumar and Kalyan Banerjee - have been declared absconders after twice ignoring summons to report at the police headquarters in Lalbazar for interrogation.
Roushan is a third-year student, Niraj is in his fourth year of MBBS and Kalyan in his final year, police sources said.
"According to multiple witnesses, Kalyan had tried to pacify the mob when Kurban was being assaulted. Hence he cannot be charged with murder. However, he provided false information to the police and attempted to tamper with evidence," said an officer probing the case.
Kalyan, if proved guilty, is liable for a maximum punishment of seven years in jail.
The lengthy chargesheet, which is a compilation of the charges, investigation process and evidence to support the police's findings, came 86 days after Kurban's murder.
For weeks after the incident, the police had made little headway in the probe into what happened in the hostel corridor after Kurban was allegedly caught trespassing and trying to steal a mobile phone. Investigators said the hostel inmates had tried to stonewall the probe until a few of them broke ranks to open up before the police.
The statements by witnesses led to the arrests one by one.
Sources said the chargesheet contained the statements of 41 witnesses, including some who weren't regarded as suspects at any time. The other witnesses include canteen staff and construction workers who were present in the building when the crime happened.
"The prosecution's case rests on the statements of these witnesses. The statements have helped the investigators piece together the sequence of events leading to the murder and the individual roles of the accused," a senior officer of the homicide department said.
Jasimuddin, who was the first to be arrested, had his statement recorded by a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC, raising hope for the police that he could become an approver. The first-year MBBS student has since retracted his statement and police sources said he could no longer be turned into an approver.
"It was a big blow to the probe when Jasimuddin retracted his statement. One of the accused turning into an approver would have helped in convicting the rest," an officer said.
The "evidence" submitted by the police in court also includes phone call details of the accused that show their tower location in and around the crime scene.
The police believe that the call records would help establish their presence when the crime was being committed.
"Apart from electronic evidence, reports from the forensic laboratory dealing with the nature and presence of weapons - bamboo sticks in this case - have been submitted as part of the chargesheet," the officer said.
Kurban had 18 injures on his body, including fractured pelvic and thigh bones and a ruptured spleen.
Now that the chargesheet in the case has been submitted, the next step is framing of charges by the court. According to legal experts, it is the court's prerogative to either start the trial under sections slapped by the police or alter the charges. This process can take months, if not years, a lawyer said.
