There was an outpouring of grief and anger among the people of Dakshinkhanpara in Howrah’s Amta block and thousands stood witness on Monday as the body of 28-year-old Anish Khan was exhumed for a second post-mortem. For six hours, people of the village and the neighbourhood remained perched on every roof and every boundary wall with eyes fixed on the graveyard as the administration went through the official procedure.
Salem Khan, father of Anish, was not feeling well and remained indoors. He had buried Anish, just 100 metres from his house about a week ago. “We will abide by the court order and allow the body to be taken away for a second post-mortem. We are being accused of non-cooperation which is not true,” he said. He repeatedly stated that he wanted an investigation by the CBI and had no faith in the special investigation team (SIT) set up by the police and he was only cooperating because of the intervention of the Calcutta High Court.
“There is no doubt that Anish was killed. How can we trust an investigation by those who are accused of the crime?“ said 65-year-old Abdul Raqique Khan, who was among the thousands assembled at Dakshinkhanpara. Villagers said they were impressed that a boy from their village had reached such heights of popularity but were sad and angry at the developments since February 18.
Death on Feb. 18
Anish Khan was found dead on February 18. Salem Khan said that four persons barged inside his home after midnight on February 18 after forcing him to open the door. Three of them went upstairs and threw Anish from the second storey of the house under construction, the father said, adding that all of them were dressed in uniform like police personnel. Faced with protests, the government on February 21 set up the SIT and two persons, a home guard and a civic police volunteer, have been arrested so far.
The Calcutta High Court had directed a second post-mortem under the supervision of a District Judge. Earlier, on February 26, when a magistrate, accompanied by a strong police force, tried to exhume the body, the villagers resisted and the police had to retreat. On Monday, after the body was exhumed, the villagers ran behind the ambulance and people came out of their home silently watching the convoy pass by. The police, who, according to Salem Khan, took eight hours to respond to the family’s cries for help on February 18, took the body for the second post-mortem through a green corridor covering a distance of over 60 km in one hour to the State-run SSKM hospital.
As thousands gathered at Anish’s village, there was no representative of the Trinamool Congress. The house of the local MLA is just a 10-minute walk, locals pointed out, but no one from the Trinamool Congress turned up. Anish Khan’s death under mysterious circumstances has become a major political issue in the State and the incident has embarrassed the Trinamool Congress.
Massive protests
Even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was quick to set up the SIT, which promises to bring out the facts of the case in two weeks, protests have continued unabated. The student and youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have launched massive protests in Kolkata and Amta for the past 10 days. Senior CPI(M) leaders like State Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra and Polit Bureau member Biman Bose have visited the village and met the family members of the deceased. DYFI State secretary Meenakshi Mukherjee was among those leading protests at Amta and was arrested with over a dozen others on February 26.
Political observers feel that the incident has provided an issue for the Left to hit the streets against the government as the BJP leadership remained clueless how to a handle the death of a student from a minority community and did not even visit the family of Anish Khan.
The death has also brought back memories of a similar incident in 2007, when the then CPI(M)-led Left Front government came under heavy criticism following the mysterious death of Rizwanur Rahman. Rizwanur was a 30-year-old computer graphics trainer who was reportedly driven to die by suicide, allegedly by local politicians and the police, following his marriage to the daughter of a prominent Kolkata-based businessman. Ms. Banerjee, who was in the Opposition, had demanded a CBI probe into the death.
