The CBI has taken over the investigation into alleged kidnapping of a teenaged girl from West Bengal's Bardhaman district in which the role of functionaries of the "ruling dispensation" is under scanner, officials on Monday said.

The agency's action comes on the Calcutta High Court's directions where the 14-year old girl's parents, had in a petition, alleged that their daughter had left home at 6 PM on August 9, 2023, for her studies but did not return.

They said that the local police was reluctant to take the probe but after much insistence they registered a case in which not much progress was made.

They had registered an FIR at the Anti-human Trafficking Unit of the state CID on August 17 that year.

The Calcutta High Court had handed over the probe to the CBI on February 8 this year, they said.

"Although two persons were arrested, the investigation was not concluded within the statutory period, which led to the grant of statutory bail to the co-accused. In the meantime, the miscreants had been threatening the petitioner and her family members," the High Court had noted citing allegations made by the girl's parents.

The parents have alleged that a group of miscreants had come to their home where they pressurised them to settle the matter after taking some money. They also told the parents that their girl has been sold.

It was alleged that the police deliberately delayed the investigation and did not send any information either on the border areas of different states.

"Upon information, it is submitted that the two accused who were arrested and granted statutory bail are political functionaries of the ruling dispensation and are very close to certain politically influential persons," the High Court noted.

The state police had submitted that they had circulated the girl's photograph in papers, did call detail analysis of two suspects who were arrested and released on bail, and also kept a watch on their movements.

The High Court said "laxity and lacunae" was apparent in the investigation done by the state police.

"The investigating agency ought to have utilized the time they got for investigating the matter further, as for instance to send the photographs of the victim to the nearby states, inform the Ministry of Home Affairs and seek necessary help in this regard and even contact the Law Enforcement Agencies of the neighbouring country through proper channel," Justice Jay Sengupta said.

Underlining that it was not for the court to tell the investigation agency how to conduct the probe, he said the police could have prayed for a narco-analysis test of the arrested accused and interrogated the people who had threatened the family.

"Considering the exigency, the inability of the CID to trace out the girl in a span of one month after so much time had been wasted by the local police, and considering the fact that the investigation into the case may require seeking inter-State or even inter-country assistance, the investigation of the case is forthwith transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)," Justice Sengupta said.

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