RG Kar case: ‘Bengal govt should not have been so active in demanding death sentence for convict’
Kolkata, Feb 7 (IANS) The father of the victim in the R.G. Kar rape and murder case said on Friday that the West Bengal government should not have been so active in approaching the Calcutta High Court demanding the death penalty for the sole convict in the case, a former civic volunteer attached to Kolkata Police, Sanjay Roy.
He made this observation while speaking to the mediapersons and reacting to the development earlier in the day wherein a division bench of the Calcutta High Court rejected the admissibility of the petition by the state government seeking death penalty for Roy.
“The order of the division bench on Friday is absolutely justified. The state government should not have been so active in the matter at this point of time. However, now the state government has got a reply from the court in the matter,” said the victim’s father.
According to him, the state government should have shown such earnestness while the initial investigation was being carried out by the Kolkata Police and ensured that all those involved in the crime besides Roy would have been nabbed.
“However, at that point of time, in reality, there had been tampering with the evidence, as a result of which the main brains behind the conspiracy are not surfacing,” the victim’s father said.
The parents of the victim have already submitted that they do not want the death penalty for Roy since they still believe that the erstwhile civic volunteer attached to the Kolkata Police was not sole culprit in the ghastly rape and murder crime.
Earlier in the day, while rejecting the admissibility of the petition from the state government, the division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi accepted a similar petition from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter.
The division bench also accepted the CBI’s argument that since their officials had been investigating the rape and murder crime, the state government did not have any locus standi in making such a petition.
To recall, after the body of the victim was recovered from a seminar hall within the premises of R.G. Kar on the morning of August 9 last year, the initial investigation was carried out by the Kolkata Police, whose sleuths also arrested Roy.
Later, the CBI took charge of the investigation following an order of the Calcutta High Court.
–IANS
src/pgh
