A PIL has been filed in the Calcutta High Court over the murder of two councillors – Anupam Dutta from Panihati (TMC) and Tapan Kandu from Jhalda (Congress). The petitioner has sought details of police probes into the murders.
In addition, the petitioner has also requested the court to order either a CBI probe or the appointment of an SIT (Special Investigation Team) comprising retired judges to investigate the murders.
Anupam Dutta was the councillor from Ward-8 of Panihati in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district. He was shot while returning home on Sunday evening.
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The councillor was rushed to Sagore Dutta Medical College in Kamarhati and later referred to a private nursing home in Belgharia, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
Dutta’s murder came hours after Tapan Kandu, a Congress councillor in the Jhalda municipality, was shot by unknown assailants. Kandu succumbed to injuries later on Sunday.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary has alleged that Kandu was shot dead because he refused to join the TMC.
“The Jhalda municipality saw a hung house after polls and Kandu and his wife were asking for help from Independent candidates. Was that a mistake? His wife has said that the TMC, through the police, was putting pressure on them to join the TMC,” Chowdhary told the media after visiting the deceased councillor’s wife.
The TMC, however, denied the allegations. “These are baseless allegations. When such mishaps happen in a family, aggrieved members listen to people and make claims without going into the root of the matter. Law requires proof and the police will collect that,” West Bengal minister Firhad Hakim said on Monday.
Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/west-bengal-tmc-congress-councillor-murder-pil-1926568-2022-03-17
