BJP woman activist murder case: Bengal govt submits report in Calcutta High Court

Kolkata: The West Bengal government, on Friday, submitted a report to the Calcutta High Court on the murder of BJP's woman activist, Rotibala Ari, in Nandigram allegedly by Trinamool Congress workers in May.

Although the family members of the victim have demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and also approached the Calcutta High Court with a plea, the charge of the investigation continues to be with the state police.

The matter came up for hearing at Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Amrita Sinha, on Friday and there the counsel of the state government presented a report on the status and progress of investigation.

Thereafter, the hearing on the matter was adjourned and will come again on July 23 after the court studies the report in detail.

To recall, Ari was murdered on May 23 in Nandigram, two days before the Lok Sabha polls were conducted in the Tamluk constituency in East Midnapore district, under which Nandigram is one of the seven Assembly constituencies.

The elected BJP legislator from Nandigram is also the leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. After the incident, Adhikari claimed that the killing was prompted by the inevitable fear of defeat in the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency.

The BJP candidate from Tamluk and the former judge of Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay got elected by a margin of 77,733 votes.