Author: Our Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: December 16, 2003
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031216/asp/bengal/story_2684317.asp
Dilip Ghosh, the first to lodge
an FIR with the Dhantola police station after the loot-and-rape outrage
on February 6, denied almost everything that he had said when the trial
began in the fast-track court here.
The nephew of the driver of the
first bus carrying wedding guests from Birnagar to Kuchiamora in North
24-Parganas, Ghosh said in court he had slumped on the street and could
not see the armed dacoits. He was the first witness produced in court.
When public prosecutor Dilip Chatterjee
asked Ghosh to identify the dacoits, he failed to recognise any of those
present in the court room, including Cheema Sardar, the alleged killer
of his brother Samir.
"I can only say that the bus was
waylaid along with another one at Ainsmali. The dacoits were masked and
armed with lathis and guns. One of them suddenly hurt me on my head and
I slumped on the street. I can't remember any thing", he told a packed
court room.
Chatterjee pleaded with the judge
that Ghosh be declared "a hostile witness" as what he said in the "recorded
statement in the police station while lodging the FIR" and what he was
saying today were different.
The court declared Ghosh "hostile"
and Chatterejee cross-examined him. But even then, an unfazed Ghosh reiterated
that he could not remember what happened on the night of February 6.
Ghosh could only recollect what
happened the next morning. "There was agitation in front of the police
station by Citu men. Their leader, Subol Bagchi, was furious in front of
policemen, who later visited Dhantola police station," Ghosh said today.
The court was adjourned after the
public prosecutor and two defence lawyers questioned Ghosh for nearly three
hours. The court will examine Abhinas Hira, who wrote the FIR on behalf
of the complainants on the morning of February 7, tomorrow.
Two buses returning from wedding
receptions were looted and at least seven women, including two minors,
were raped during the incident that nearly stretched into morning.
Twenty accused, including former
Aranghata zonal committee secretary of the CPM and school teacher Subol
Bagchi and former pradhan of the Ainsmali panchayat Saidul Karigar, were
today present in the court of the additional sessions judge.
