The special court in Purulia on Sunday allowed CBI custody of three of the four arrested persons for interrogations in connection with Congress councillor Tapan Kandu’s murder.
Congress councillor of Jhalda municipality Tapan had been gunned down on the evening of March 13. His family, especially wife Purnima Kandu, also a Congress councillor, and nephew Mithun Kandu, alleged that the Jhalda IC Sanjib Ghosh had been intimidating him to join Trinamul. Police had said Tapan’s murder was the fallout of a family feud minus any political angle and had arrested four persons in the case. However, the high court, hearing the plea of the family, handed over the probe to the CBI.
The three persons who have been allowed CBI custody include Tapan’s cousin Naren Kandu, Jhalda-based poultry trader Mohammad Ashik Khan and Jharkhand-based contract killer Kalebar Singh. The court granted seven days of CBI remand to Naren and Ashik and five days for Kalebar.
The CBI has taken them to the temporary camp at a forest guest house in Jhalda. However, the CBI did not seek custody of the arrested Dipak, Naren’s son, for interrogation.
Purulia SP S. Selvamurugan had claimed that Naren and his son Dipak had a long-standing family feud with Tapan. He claimed that Naren hired Kalebar through Ashik to eliminate Tapan. Naren allegedly paid Rs 7 lakh to Kalebar through Ashik, who had also sheltered the “killer” at his home before and after the murder, police said.
CBI sources said they would interrogate the trio together and individually to know if they had any role in the murder.
CBI sources said they received “significant” information after interrogating the five policemen who were taken off duty as punishment after the murder on March 13. The CBI is probing why the five policemen on duty at the Naka checkpost, barely 100m from the murder spot, did not respond after hearing the commotion after Tapan was killed.
“One of the five policemen was trying to misguide us during interrogation. His statements did not match the four others. We will now interrogate the five together,” said a CBI source.
