She came, she saw, she slapped.

A test identification (TI) parade inside Dum Dum Central Jail took a dramatic turn on Wednesday afternoon when the sister of a murdered teenager identified the main accused from a pool of 33 persons and gave vent to her anger, catching jail officials napping and raising uncomfortable questions about the practice in Bengal.

Rinku Das, 22, elder sister of Rajib Das of Barasat, today walked up to Mithun Das, the prime accused in the case and slapped him, before taking a few steps back and then identifying the two other accused — Monojit Biswas and Biswanath alias Babu Chatterjee.

“He (Mithun) was the one who poured liquor over me and led the assault on my brother. How can a sister ever forget the faces of those responsible for her brother’s murder? I just wish that justice prevails and they are punished,” Rinku told Metro later on Wednesday.

If Rinku’s slap reflected her pent-up rage on seeing the trio 16 days after her brother’s murder and her own humiliation, it also revealed how none of those involved in the episode, starting with the jail authorities, had followed the rulebook for a TI parade.

He (Mithun) was the one who poured liquor over me and led the assault on my brother. How can a sister ever forget the faces of those responsible for her brother’s murder? I just wish that justice prevails and they are punished - Rinku Das

“Ideally, the witnesses and the accused should be kept in separate enclosures in such a way that the witness can see the accused but the accused cannot see the witness. But the existing system of identification of an accused in this state lacks this mechanism,” admitted a senior officer of the state police.

“Probably this explains why, on several instances, witnesses or an identifier have turned hostile during the trial of a case. There is no system of safeguarding the witness’s identity during a TI parade and so if the accused gets to know the witness, he can use various methods to intimidate him or her,” he added.

On the night of February 14, Mithun and two others had picked upon Rinku while she was returning to her Banikanthanagar house in Barasat riding pillion on the bicycle of her 16-year-old brother, who was to appear for his Madhyamik. The gang stopped the brother-sister duo near Kachhari Maidan and started teasing Rinku. When Rajib protested, the three began beating him up. A desperate Rinku ran to bungalows of senior district officials, barely 100 meters away, seeking help from the guards on duty.

Even as police dithered, Rajib was thrashed and then stabbed with a knife. Hours later, he died at RG Kar Medical College.

The district police from North 24-Parganas first arrested Chandan Das from Guma in Habra but Rinku failed to identify him. After the CID took over the investigation, Mithun, Monojit and Biswanath were rounded up late on February 25 from Madhyamgram station and Barasat.

At the court production in Barasat the next day, the CID didn’t press for police custody as it wanted to hold the TI parade in a hurry before drawing up a charge-sheet. The date was fixed for March 2, at Dum Dum jail in the presence of a magistrate.

“The process started around 2.45pm with the three being paraded along with 30 others inside a large room on the first floor. Rinku stood with two others in the presence of the magistrate. As soon as she spotted a lanky youth (later identified as Mithun), she walked up and before anyone could react, landed a tight slap on his face,” said a jail official. “Everyone was shocked.”

For the next hour-and-a-half, Rinku and two others, a homoeopath and a van-rickshaw puller, completed the process of identifying the three accused before leaving the jail premises around 4.15 pm.

“We’ll wait for the magistrate’s report,” said Anuj Sharma, DIG, CID.

At the state police directorate, questions were raised about the way the TI parade was conducted. “The manner in which Rinku could go up and slap an accused shows how callous the system is,” said a senior IPS officer.