Court orders CBI to probe Rizwanur death afresh

KOLKATA - The Calcutta High Court Tuesday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register a murder case and investigate afresh the mysterious death of Rizwanur Rahman, who had married the daughter of a local rich Hindu businessman in 2007.

Acting on a petition filed by Rizwanur’s mother Kishwar Jahan, a division bench of Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice Prosensjit Mondal directed the CBI to submit its probe report in four months.

The court also asked the CBI to launch a murder case under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code by taking the police complaint filed by Rizwanur’s brother Rukbanur Rahman as the first information report (FIR).

The bench set aside the earlier order of Justice Soumita Pal, who had ordered a CBI inquiry.

The bench observed that Justice Pal did not authorise the federal investigation agency to probe the alleged crime but only gave a directive to go into the reasons of the death and submit a report to the court.

Rizwanur, a computer graphics teacher, married Priyanka, daughter of Kolkata businessmen Ashok Todi. He was found dead Sep 21, 2007, along the railway tracks at Patipukur near the city’s northern suburb of Dum Dum.

The death sparked outrage following allegations that Ashok Todi had influenced several police officers to bring pressure on Rizwanur, 20, to opt out of the marriage.

Several police officers, including the then city police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee, were later removed from their posts for their alleged role in Rizwanur’s death.

The CBI then concluded that Rizwanur had committed suicide. Todi, two of his relatives and four senior city police officers were among those later formally charged with allegedly abetting Rizwanur’s suicide.

Expressing happiness at the high court order, Rukbanur said his family now stood vindicated.

“It has been our long standing position that Rizwan was murdered. Now we stand vindicated. We are satisfied,” he said.

On the other hand, state Advocate General Balai Roy said that now, as per the court order, the entire probe has to start afresh. “Now there is no accused. Everything will now depend on the fresh probe.”

The state government also came in for criticism from the division bench.

The court termed as indecisive and vacillating the course of action taken by the government, which first gave charge of the probe to the Government Railway Police and then handed over the job to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state police.

Later, a judicial probe was ordered, but it was stopped when the high court ordered the CBI probe.

“We fail to appreciate why the CID stopped all investigations after October 16 and handed over all original records to the CBI despite there being no such order from the high court,” the judges observed Tuesday.