The West Bengal government on Thursday ruled out a CBI inquiry into the death of Rizwanur Rehman and removal of three senior police officials, who allegedly threatened him to separate from his wife, daughter of a Hindu industrialist.
Five senior police officials told the Calcutta High Court that they handed out threats to Rehman, the computer graphics teacher, were baseless.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ruled out the CBI probe into Rizwanur's death and the removal of the three IPS officers, including police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee, who allegedly pressurised him to part with his wife, Minority Affairs minister Abdus Sattar said.
Bhattacharjee conveyed this to a delegation of Muslim leaders, including Sattar, who met him.
"(The Muslim leaders) told the chief minister about the CBI inquiry, but he said that there was no difference between it and CID," Sattar said. He said Bhattacharjee said the CBI had not been able to make much headway in recovering the Nobel Prize medal of Rabindranath Tagore or unravelling the Tapasi Malik murder case at Singur.
Sattar said the leaders wanted to know how a state agency like the CID could conduct an impartial inquiry when the Commissioner of Police, DCP (headquarters) Gyanwant Singh and DCP (Detective Department) remained in their posts.
"The chief minister said three officers would appear before the CID if called. He said even he would go to the CID if asked to do so," Sattar said.
Justifying the government's order for a judicial inquiry, the chief minister told the meeting, "I have faith in the judicial system and so I have ordered a judicial enquiry into the incident."
