KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the West Bengal Government to file a status report on the progress of investigation into the alleged gang rape incident of a female student within the South Calcutta Law College premises at Kasba on June 25.
A division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De said that the Government must submit the status report of investigation in the form of an affidavit and also produce the case diary of the investigation before the Court on the next hearing date on July 10.
The High Court also directed the authorities of the South Calcutta Law College to submit the constitution of the college in its affidavit to be submitted to the court on the day of next hearing.
Three PILs were filed in the Calcutta High Court in connection with the alleged gang rape incident and two were admitted by the Court.
The Bench on Thursday took note of the concern expressed in the petition over the “multiple serious and unanswered questions which reflect deep-rooted institutional negligence and administrative apathy” and directed the West Bengal Government to address the concern in its report to be submitted to the Court.
In the hearing on Thursday, the victim's family said that they have faith in the investigation by the Kolkata Police's Special Investigation Team or SIT. Earlier, the victim's family had also said that they do not want a CBI investigation. They have faith in the police investigation. However, the Kolkata Police's Detective Department has taken over the investigation of the incident from the SIT.
The Bench told the counsels of the victim, who submitted to the court that the victim was ready to cooperate with the SIT set up for the probe, that the Court would also hear them.
During the hearing today, advocate Kalyan Banerjee, representing the state, argued, “A woman police officer arrested the three accused within just three hours of the incident. Don't think the state police are incompetent.”
Manojit Mishra, an alumnus of the college is the prime accused in the incident. Mishra along with co-accused Zaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukherjee, were arrested by the police. The Alipore Court on Tuesday remanded all three accused to further police custody till July 8. The arrested security guard’s police custody was extended till July 4.
