Representational Image— DC File

KOLKATA: West Bengal witnessed the killings of two arrested accused of murder in two police encounters in the same style in two districts within a span of 24 hours on Tuesday. In both the extra-judicial killings, the cops claimed unofficially that the accused had snatched their service revolvers for firing on them before getting shot dead in retaliation.

One of the encounters took place after midnight at Gaighata in Bongaon of North 24 Parganas where a youth, Prahlad Das, was arrested on October 25 by the police for allegedly raping and murdering his distant relative, a 17-year-old girl, in the night of October 24 after calling her over phone from a musical event near her house. Late on Monday night, the cops took Prahlad to reconstruct the crime to the place of occurrence behind the house of the victim's neighbour.

While returning after 12 am, the 23-year-old accused wanted to go for nature's call. The cops stopped the vehicle midway at Baidyabari area. They alleged that Prahlad however snatched a service revolver from one of them after getting down from the vehicle and fired three rounds, leaving one of them injured. The police vehicle also bore a bullet-mark. Prahlad was gunned down by the police in an instant retaliation.

Preliminary investigation suggested that the cops fired four rounds on him before he was declared brought dead at Chandpara Grameen Hospital. On Tuesday, the body underwent post-mortem at Barasat District Hospital. According to the post-mortem report, Prahlad suffered three bullet injuries– two on chest while another on left thigh. The victim girl's father welcomed the police action. He said, “I will not get back my daughter but the police did a good job.”

The second encounter unfolded in the afternoon at Dhuliyan in Shamshergunj of Murshidabad where Samaul Sheikh (35) was recently arrested for allegedly killing a BJP worker, Sujit Mondal, along with two aides on August 28, chopping the body into pieces and disposing the body parts in Farakka Barrage feeder canal. A team of police and CID officers took Samaul to his rented house at Old Dakbunglow market area at around 2.30 pm to make him re-enact the crime.

They however blamed him for turning violent, snatching the service revolver of one of them, Akshay Pal, an inspector, and firing three rounds during the reconstruction. Another inspector-rank cop immediately fired three rounds on Samaul who was later declared dead at Anupnagar Block Hospital. This is also the third encounter after BJP came to power in the state.

Earlier, two aides of Samaul, Tajkira Bibi and Johny Sheikh, were arrested for their role in the case following a complaint by Sujit's wife, Sumana Mondal, to chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, suspension of Dhuliyan police outpost in-charge Sumanta Das, investigating officer of the case, Sariful Islam, and Shamshergunj police station inspector-in-charge Subrata Ghosh and transfer of SDPO (Farakka) Sheikh Shamsuddin and transfer of the case to CID from the district police. After the encounter, Sumana said, “I'm happy at the police encounter of the main assailant of my husband. The two other killers should meet the same fate also."


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