CBI moves Calcutta HC seeking dismissal of FIR by state police in Lalan Sheikh death

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Wednesday morning, moved the Calcutta High Court seeking dismissal of the FIR filed against it by the West Bengal police in connection

with the custodial death of Bogtui carnage prime accused Lalan Sheikh.

A single-judge bench of Justice Jay Sengupta has admitted the petition in the matter.

The prime accused behind the massacre at Bogtui village in West Bengal's Birbhum district on March 21 this year, died in CBI custody on Monday evening at the central agency's camp at

Rampurhat in the same district.

Birbhum district police while registering the case, the probe of which now has been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state police, incorporated two severe

clauses of the Indian Penal Code namely Section 302 (punishment for murder) and 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy).

According to CBI sources, of the seven central agency officials named in the FIR, one is Sushanta Bhattacharya, the investigating officer (IO) of cattle- smuggling case in West Bengal and

who has no remote connection with the agency's parallel investigation on Bugtui carnage and murder of Trinamool Congress leader, Vadu Sheikh.

While moving the petition, CBI's counsel argued that the agency has taken the matter of Lalan Sheikh's death quite seriously.

"His body was immediately shifted to hospital and a post-mortem conducted. There is no justification of naming so many agency officials in the FIR. This will lead to slowing down the

agency's investigation in other matters. One officer has been named in the FIR who is involved in the investigation of the cattle smuggling case," the CBI counsel argued.

On December 13, family members of Lalan Sheikh also staged a protest in front of the CBI office in Birbhum. The central agency said Lalan had hanged himself inside the camp's toilet on

Monday evening.

West Bengal Crime Investigation Department (WBCID) takes over the probe related to the unnatural death of the main accused in the Bogtui case Lalan Sheikh in CBI custody, informed CID

officials on Wednesday.

Sources said that his body was being sent from the CBI camp to Rampurhat sub-divisional hospital. However, the reasons for his death are yet to be known.

Lalan Sheikh has been accused of burning eight people alive at Bogtui village in March this year and had been absconding since then. The CBI arrested him from Jharkhand on December 3 this

year sleuths after over an eight-month hunt.