Cops face heat for 'hiding' victim's death from court

Kolkata: Hours after TOI highlighted how the police probing the hit-and-run case on Bijon Setu around Thursday midnight did not mention in court that the pavement dweller, run over by Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad state general secretary Kanishka Majumdar, had died, fresh evidence has come up to show that the "blunder" could have been "tacit police connivance".
With the police choosing not to highlight the victim's death, Majumdar walked out within minutes of his arrest, paying a paltry sum for bail as the charges against him were minor, including mischief causing damage to the amount of Rs 50. Lawyer and Congress leader Arunava Ghosh had called for action against both the investigating officer and the OC of the Gariahat police station for such negligence.
The police had claimed that the victim had not died when Majumdar was produced in court around 2.30pm on Friday. However, the hospital records showed that the footpath dweller died at 6.40am though the entry of the information into the official log took longer, and that it was completed at 11.30am. Even then, said advocates, the news of the accident victim's death was confirmed at least three hours before Majumdar was produced in court around 2.30pm.
Advocates pointed out that the police kiosk at the CNMC Hospital, where the victim was taken and he subsequently died, was barely a few paces from the emergency ward. In this age of communication, there possibly could not be any excuse for this little but crucial piece of information not being relayed to the police who produced Majumdar in court or brought him to the same hospital for his compulsory medical test before being produced in court, said the advocates. Calling the exercise "intolerable", former mayor Bikash Bhattacharya asked, "How could the police not admit that the street dweller died almost immediately?"
The police tried to justify by saying a case under stricter laws, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, could have been "difficult" to prove in court as witnessed earlier, but legal hawks wondered why could the cops not follow the basic rule of telling the court the entire truth and let it take the decision.