In another setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta high court on Wednesday expressed its displeasure over the police’s failure to slap attempt to murder charge against former Trinamul Congress MLA from Bhangar Arabul Islam for the attack on senior CPI(M) leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah. The court asked the state government to file an affidavit within February 17. The court expressed its desire that the affidavit should preferably be signed by the home secretary. The next hearing of the case will be on February 21.
Mr Mollah’s son Mushtaq Ahmed had filed a petition in the court praying for an independent inquiry into the attack on his father. He had also requested the court to monitor the investigation. His lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya informed the court about the details of Mr Mollah’s injury who had to spend 22 days in hospital with a fractured hip bone. “We told the honourable court that Mr Mollah’s driver Amar Ghosh had lodged a complaint at the Calcutta Leather Complex police station stating that Arabul Islam and a band of 20-25 armed people had attacked him. However, the police slapped only bailable charges like 148, 149, 323, 325 and 427 against Mr Islam and section 326 of the IPC (causing grievous injury by dangerous weapon) and section 307 (attempt to murder) were not included,” Mr Bhattacharyya said later.