SC seeks report of WB on probe done in murder of 3 BJP workers

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the West Bengal government to file a report in two weeks on the investigation into the alleged killing of three BJP workers in the state after the recent local body polls.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Ashok Bhushan said it will go into the locus of petitioner advocate Gaurav Bhatia only after the state government's reply comes, after the state government said such petitions should not be encouraged by the court.

Maintaining that several people have been arrested with regard to the alleged murders, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for West Bengal government, said it was wrong to say that the police was not doing anything.

"At the time when the petition was filed, several people were arrested with regard to those crimes. We will file a detailed reply with respect to the investigation done in a sealed cover," he said.

The bench said it needed only a brief outline of what is being done in these cases.

Bhatia, who is also a BJP leader, said that after the notice was issued on his petition, the police started acting and told the media that people were being arrested.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing after two weeks.

The apex court had on August 24 agreed to examine the plea seeking a CBI probe into the alleged killing of three BJP workers in West Bengal. The plea filed by Bhatia alleged that the family members of the victims were being threatened.

The court had issued notice to West Bengal and the CBI on the plea and sought their replies in four weeks.

Bhatia had sought a CBI probe and alleged that the family members of the three slain BJP workers, Shaktipada Sarkar, Trilochan Mahato and Dulal Kumar, were being threatened. He had also demanded that compensation to the tune of Rs 50 lakh and security cover to the family members of the victims.

The BJP workers were killed in Purulia and South 24 Pargana districts of West Bengal after the recently held panchayat polls.

Shaktipada Sarkar, a BJP block president in the Mandirbazar-Dhanurhat area, was hacked tod death when he was returning home in the South 24 Parganas district on July 28m, while the body of 32-year-old Dulal Kumar, a BJP worker, was found hanging from an electric pole in the Purulia's Balarampur area on June 2.

In the same district on May 30, the body of 18-year-old Tirlochan Mahato, also a BJP worker from Balarampur, was found hanging from a tree with a poster written in Bengali struck on his back, saying he was killed for canvassing for the BJP in the panchayat election.