Kolkata, (Samajweekly) The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the Ram Navami clashes in West Bengal following an order of the Calcutta High Court, has so far filed six FIRs.
Sources said that the central agency will be submitting the copies of the six FIRs to the Calcutta High Court on Thursday. It will seek the court’s directive so that the state police officially hand over the charge of the investigation to the NIA.
At the same time, the counsel for the central agency will also seek a court directive for the state police to hand over the arrested accused to the NIA.
Recently, NIA sent communiques to the additional director general in-charge of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police as well as the commissioners of Chandernagore Police Commiserate and Howrah City Police, seeking documents related to the clashes, including copies of the FIRs filed by the state police.
Although initially the CID-West Bengal took over the investigation, on April 27 a division bench of the Calcutta High Court ordered an NIA probe into it. It is learnt that NIA has sought a quick response from the state police authorities so that their sleuths can start the investigation at the earliest.
On April 27, while directing the NIA to take over the probe in the matter, Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya also directed the state police to handover all case-related documents to the NIA within the next two weeks.
While passing the order, the bench observed that it is beyond the ability of the state police to find those who were responsible for the clashes or who instigated it and hence a probe by a central agency was necessary.
Earlier, the division bench questioned the efficiency of the intelligence wing of the state police regarding pelting of stones from the roofs of residences in the troubled belts.
The bench questioned the failure of the intelligence in getting information about stones being accumulated on the rooftops.
