Court: Exceptional case of cold-blooded murder

BANKURA: A Bankura court on Tuesday rejected the bail petition of Udayan Das, terming the case “exceptional“ and a case of “cold-blooded“ murder, and sent the accused to eight days in police custody .
Defence counsel Arup Banerjee, pressing a mental insanity plea, had moved the bail petition, saying all major recoveries -body parts, laptops and IDs -had already been made, and the eight-day police custody prayer was, thus, “too long“.
Public prosecutor Amitjyoti Dutta said it was “pre-planned and calculated murder“.He also prayed for the addition of sections 302 (murder) and 201(destruction of evidence) of the IPC to the original sections of 365 (kidnapping) and 368 (illegal and forced confinement), which the court granted.
“I have gone through the FIR, forwarding prayer, case diary and the transit remand order passed by the learned judicial magistrate of Bhopal,“ said chief judicial magistrate Arun Kumar Nandy . “The IO's [investigating officer's]prayer to add sections 302 and 201 is justified and hence the prayer is granted. In the interest of the case, eight days' police remand is granted,“ Nandy said.
The court ordered for Udayan's health be checked every 24 hours.
Section 84 IPC condones “mentally insane“ people from their acts of crime. The Supreme Court, however, in a 1964 order made it clear that under this section it is the appellant (in this case Udayan) who has to prove it by placing before the court all the relevant evidence.In this backdrop, Udyayan's calm replies to interrogators appeared baffling.
He told them that he had fallen out with his parents when he was 16 years old. His father, a senior railway employee, and mother, an employee of MP's statistical department, had forced him to take up science in Class XI, even when he pleaded with them to that he hated maths. He told the cops that he failed Class XI. However, it was then that the new Chattisgarh state was formed and his parents chose to move to Raipur -his mother with a new job; and his father, having opted for VRS, taking up a contract job at BHEL. After passing Class XII, much against his wishes, he was forced to join a private engineering college in Durg. But he couldn't clear his second year semester and was thrown out. Yet, he told interrogators, he stepped out of home every day for the next four years, as if he was going to college. His parents found out only when he didn't get a job after course completion. Udayan said he knew his parents had lots of money after his father bought land in Raipur. It was this constant bickering at home, he claimed, that made him plot their murder. “We suspect these were murders for gain,“ said Bankura SP Sukhendu Heera.
Udayan said he first met Akansha in 2008, when she was 22, on a college excursion to Rajasthan. They kept touch in Orkut, then on Facebook and recently on WhatsApp. “There are a lot of missing links. He will be questioned further,“ said Heera.
Court regulars could not recall any other case that had garnered so much public scrutiny .Since 9am on Tuesday , hundreds thronged the court premises. The curious couple from Govindapur, about 27km from the town, the lawyers in black robes and even schoolboys bunking classes -they all lined up for a peek, mobile cameras in hand. By 2pm, the cops found it almost impossible to produce Udayan in court. As people clashed with cops, several were found perched from the court window grilles, forcing the magistrate to call for decorum. Curiously , the man at the centre of the storm was calm.He was found running his hands through his hair, the blue shirt he was wearing on Monday night at the airport having been replaced by a white tee, his blazer still on. He kept fidgeting during the nearly 12minute argument, his eyes fixed on the magistrate.
`Udayan abducted my daughter'
Back at Rabindra Pally, Akansha Sharma's father Shivendra recalled how his repeated pleas on WhatsApp to his daughter to send a “selfie“ of hers in the US went unanswered for weeks in July and August last year (cops say she was murdered in August).
He also claimed that Udayan abducted his daughter from her aunt's residence in Delhi. TNN
`My brother said he was at a party'
Udayan's uncle Rabindra Kumar Das, 75, said he had tried to contact his brother in July 2009, but numerous calls went unanswered.“After a few minutes, I received a text from my brother's number saying he was in a party and would not like to be disturbed. I was taken aback but did not pursue the matter further,“ he said.