KOLKATA: Police can also take the Baruipur encounter policy in which the key accused in a brutal rape and murder case of a minor girl was killed in midnight, also in West Midnapore district’s Kharagpur, to eliminate local gangsters in the area if the situation demands.
Dilip Ghosh, West Bengal panchayat minister, on Sunday said that police can also take this Baruipur policy against mafias, goons, drug-addicted criminals.
Ghosh, a heavyweight minister in the Suvendu Adhikari cabinet in West Bengal, while inaugurating an office of his BJP party in Kharagpur Sadar constituency from where he has been elected in the assembly polls in the state, asserted that the state government has given a free hand to the police to take action against gangsters in the state.
Giving a strong message to the criminals, he said “threat culture” has now become a thing of the past in West Bengal. “I have asked the police to adopt a zero-tolerance approach towards criminal elements. No mafia will be allowed to step foot on the soil of Kharagpur. I hope peace will be restored in the Kharagpur area before the Durga Puja,” he asserted.
“Forget about what happened during the previous Trinamool Congress rule in West Bengal. The BJP government has given a free hand to the police to take action against mafia and gangsters,” the senior BJP leader said. If the crime is grave and the situation warrants, “encounter by the police will be the last resort.
Police will only press the trigger to prevent criminal activities. You (criminals) have to face bullets before you take your meal ‘daal, bhat (rice) soon after you step in Kharagpur. We won’t tolerate this type of criminal activity”, the panchayat minister added.
On the night of 8 July, Prabhas Mondal, the main accused in the Baruipur minor rape and murder case, was shot dead while he tried to escape 'from police custody during the reconstruction of the crime scene.
The accused was taken to the crime scene in Baruipur at around 12:45 a.m. on the intervening night of 8 July for the reconstruction of the crime scene.
According to the police, while trying to reconstruct the crime scene after midnight, Mondal tried to snatch the firearm and escape. Police said they retaliated in self-defence after the accused fired one round. He was rushed to Baruipur Hospital after sustaining bullet injuries but was declared dead.
The accused was one of the prime suspects in the case and had been seen with the victim in CCTV footage before the alleged rape and murder of the girl. He was one of the four accused arrested. The two others have been named as Ananda Sardar, Dibakar Sardar and Bashir Mallick.
The victim's body had been found stuffed inside a sack in the Surjyapur Haat area on July 5, triggering protests by residents who had blocked the Baruipur-Joynagar Road.
People had burnt tyres and damaged police vehicles and demanded the arrest of the accused.
Hours after the body was recovered, a man identified as Indrajit Mondal had been lynched by an angry mob on suspicion of involvement in the girl's death.
Authorities subsequently imposed Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in Baruipur, Narendrapur and Sonarpur areas of South 24 Parganas to maintain law and order amid rising tensions.
According to police sources, the preliminary post-mortem report found injuries to the girl's private parts, along with scratches and bite marks on her body. The report had also indicated that her head had either been struck with a heavy object or banged against a hard surface.