Baruipur encounter: Calcutta HC directs preservation of CCTV footage

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the West Bengal Police to preserve the CCTV footage related to the encounter killing of Pravas Mondal, a prime accused in the rage and murder of a minor girl at Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district in July this year.

A division bench of Justices Arijit Banerjee and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra also directed the quick completion of the ongoing investigation process in the matter.

The next hearing in the matter will be after three weeks, and as per the bench's ruling, the investigation process in the matter should be completed before then.

In July this year, a minor girl went missing in the Suryapur area under ​​Baruipur Police Station in South 24 Parganas.

Later, her body was recovered from a pond in a bag. After that, Baruipur went into a state of siege for quite some time, following violent protests by a group of local people, in which an innocent youth was also lynched.

The police arrested four persons, namely Pravas Mondal, Dibakar Sardar, Anand Sardar, and Kabir Mollah.

On the night of July 7, the police went out to the scene of the crime along with Mondal to reconstruct the scene. It was claimed that at that time, the accused tried to escape after snatching the firearm of a police officer and even fired at the police team. He was killed as police retaliated.

Officials of Baruipur Police District, where the scene of the crime falls, claimed that the investigating officer, Arghya Mandal, was forced to fire from his service weapon to save himself and his colleagues from Mondal. However, after several questions were raised about the encounter, the investigation of the incident was handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Meanwhile, a petition had also been filed at the Calcutta High Court demanding a central agency probe in the matter.

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