Anshuman Bagchi, 56, the lone absconder in the rape-and-death case of a minor girl in Hanskhali in April, was arrested by the CBI in the early hours of Monday, two days after the central agency filed a chargesheet against him and eight others.
Bagchi, a neighbour of the girl and an aide to accused Trinamul leader Samarendra Gayali, fled on April 13, the day the CBI took up the probe.
Samarendra’s son Brajo and friends were accused of raping the girl on April 4. She died the following day. Her mother’s complaint with Hanskhali police had mentioned Bagchi’s role in “forcibly” taking and cremating the body.
The CBI arrested Bagchi near Ranaghat. He was produced in the special Pocso court in Ranaghat, which sent him to five days of judicial custody. He has been accused of conspiracy, intimidation and destroying evidence, among others.
With his arrest, all persons named in the chargesheet are in custody.
On April 4, the girl was allegedly raped by Samarendra’s son Brajo Gayali alias Sohail and his friends at his home during his birthday party. The girl came home bleeding excessively and died untreated the next morning.
Allegedly, Samarendra used his political clout and engaged Bagchi, another accused Parimal Biswas and others who took away the girl’s body at gunpoint from her home and cremated it apparently to destroy evidence of the crime.
A member of the CBI team said: “Investigation revealed that after the death, the accused (Bagchi) played an active role to take the body immediately to the crematorium and set it on fire without leaving an opportunity for medical examination…. The investigation, however, is yet to be over.”
On Monday, the CBI also produced other accused persons, except the two minors, in the case before the special Pocso court.
The court has ordered an extension of their judicial custody up to July 16, CBI sources said.