Thaindian News

Kolkata, Aug 20 (IANS) A Midnapore court Saturday remanded former Marxist minister Sushanta Ghosh, arrested in connection with the skeleton case, in judicial custody for 10 days.

“We opposed the bail petition filed by Ghosh and prayed to the court he may be sent to judicial custody, which the West Midnapore chief judicial magistrate’s court allowed,” Criminal Investigation Department (CID) counsel Rajdeep Majumdar said. “We did not seek police remand for Ghosh because investigation in his respect is almost complete.”

Ghosh’s counsel, on the other hand, filed a petition before the court accusing the CID of deliberately framing the Marxist leader and leaking the investigation details to the media. “He has been deliberately framed,” counsel Sayan Dey said.

“How come the media is present at the search sites even before the police? Confidential documents like the case diary are regularly being leaked to the media. We have filed a petition against this, which will be heard August 30,” Dey said.

Majumdar refuted the charge: “The investigation agency is not at all responsible for any alleged leakage.”

Ghosh was arrested Aug 11 after a West Midnapore court cancelled his anticipatory bail, and will be kept in Midnapore Central Correctional Home.

It is alleged that Ajay Acharya and some other members of the Trinamool Congress were attacked by armed people reportedly belonging to the CPI-M Sep 22, 2002.

Ghosh was one of the 40 people named in the first information report (FIR) filed after the incident. The FIR claimed seven Trinamool members were brutally killed.

The victims, including Ajay Acharya, were untraceable since then. But June 4, the skeletons were recovered and led to the arrest of two of Ghosh’s aides.

He took anticipatory bail after Shyamal Acharya filed a police complaint that one of the skeletons was of his father, Ajay Acharya.

DNA tests by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory here have confirmed Acharya’s identity and that of another missing Trinamool worker, Swapan Singha alias Raju Singha.

Following Ghosh’s arrest, the CID August 13 conducted simultaneous searches at his houses on Chandrakona Road and Benachapra in West Midnapore and Minto Park in the city.

A fresh case was filed against him under the Indian Telegraph Act after the sleuths found two wireless sets at his Chandrakona Road residence.

Another case, under the Arms Act, was lodged against his brother Prashanta Ghosh following discovery of 16 rounds of ammunition from a room in which he stayed in the Ghoshs’ ancestral house at Benachapra.