Bengal DGP faces flak for clean chit to Trinamool hate speech maker

Accusing West Bengal's Trinamool Congress government of "sheltering criminals", opposition parties Thursday slammed state Director General of Police (DGP) G.M.P. Reddy for giving a "clean chit" to a ruling party leader infamous for hate speeches.

The parties' reactions came after the state police chief, who was summoned before the Calcutta High Court to personally explain why the chargesheet in the case was filed without the leave of the court which was monitoring the investigation, defended the move as well as the dropping of prime accused Birbhum district Trinamool president Anubrata Mondal's name from it.

"When his own police are being attacked by goons, the DGP had to appear before the court and give a clean chit to a Trinamool leader who had called for bombing police. The DGP, who has bowed his head to the whims of the ruling party, has no right to continue as the police chief," said state Bharatiya Janata Party unit president Rahul Sinha.

He also ridiculed Reddy and the state police over the assault on a police officer in Bolpur in the district allegedly by cronies of Mondal.

State Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury claimed that the police, administration and the Trinamool have become one and the same.

"Today we saw how the DGP personally appeared before the court to give a clean chit to criminals. There can be no other glaring example of biased, prejudicial and laughable role of a police officer," he said.

"When the high court has been repeatedly slamming the government for not acting against criminals, the ruling party has been shamelessly harbouring and sheltering them. Today's example proves that the administration, police and the Trinamool have become one and the same," he added.

Communist Party of India-Marxist parliamentarian Mohammad Salim said the state police acts only on the directions of the ruling party.

"Be it the Saradha scam, rapes or other crimes, police in Bengal have become a laughing stock," he alleged.

Hearing a petition seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into a murder case, Justice Harish Tandon had summoned Reddy, who headed the court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the 2013 murder of independent panchayat member Sagar Ghosh which took place days after Mondal gave an inflammatory speech inciting party workers to resort to violence against independent candidates and hurl bombs at police if they prevented them.

Appearing before Justice Tandon, Reddy said the chargesheet was filed in a lower court in Birbhum trying the murder case, following the advice of a state counsel contending that the court had not passed any order restraining the SIT from filing the chargesheet.

About Mondal's name being dropped from the chargesheet, Reddy said police was investigating the matter separately and was in the process of filing a separate chargesheet concerning his hate speech video which was widely telecast by news channels.