Krishnanagar, Feb. 18: A joint team of Nadia Police and CID have arrested Abhijit Pundari (26), prime accused in Trinamul MLA Satyajit Biswas’s murder case from South Eastern Railway’s Radhamohanpur station near Debra in West Midnapur district on Monday morning.
A special team of eight cops, who were closely following Abhijit’s movement tracking a sim card he started using recently, had dragged him out from a Panskura bound local train and disembarked at the Radhamohanpur rail station of Debra at about 10.30 in the morning.
Sources said, Abhijit raised an alarm and tried to run away. But, the cops caught him again chasing around hundred meter outside the Radhamohanpur station again.
MLA Satyajit Biswas
The incident sparked confusion among the locals who construed it as a crime attempt and gheraoed sleuths and informed Trinamul’s local block president Anupam Das. Misconception, however, was cleared when the sleuths revealed their identity to Das, who helped the cops providing them vehicles to take Abhijit to camp office.
An officer of Nadia police said, “The situation turned quite difficult for us when Abhijit tried to run away. We chased a caught him. But, local people became suspicious. They were convinced when the Trinamul leader came and satisfied with our identity. We also told them about Abhijit. The Trinamul leader and the locals helped us later.
Eye witnesses told police that it was Abhijit who had allegedly fired at Satyajit Biswas from close range on February 9 night at a play ground in Phulbari where the MLA was watching a cultural programme on the occasion of Saraswati puja.
Nadia superintendent of police Rupesh Kumar confirmed arrest of Abhijit, but refused to divulge any other details for ‘sake of investigation’. Abhijit will be produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Ranaghat on Tuesday.
Abhijit Biswas
Abhijit, a Trinamul activist was named in the FIR by eyewitness of the murder and slain MLA’s close aide Milan Saha along with four others including BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was accused for conspiracy. While murder accused Sujit Mandal, Mithun Mandal, Kalidas Mandal were arrested by police, Abhijit managed to flee after the incident. Police also arrested Nirmal Ghosh, an elderly BJP leader interrogating the three accused youths.
Abhijit, nevertheless, managed to elude the sleuths. However, breakthrough came after police tracked all calls made and received by Abhijit since few days before and after the incident. “After tracking some numbers who were in contact of Abhijit we came to know that Abhijit has been staying near Kharaper. We started tracking him through a source and came to know that he would travel towards Panskura in a local train. We boarded the train and spotted him. We drag him down in Radhamohanpur but he tried to flee”, an officer of Nadia police said.
CID sources claimed that the investigating team camped in Mudpur, near Kharagpur after it became sure about Abhijit’s location. On Monday, the eight cops boarded the Panskura bound train from Mudpur in plain clothes spotted the abhijit travelling in a compartment.
“After dragging down in Radhamohanpur we called our vehicles from Mudpur. But, as the situation turned bad suddenly we requested the local Trinamul leader for vehicle so that we could manage to come out from the place before Abhijit creates any further problem”, the officer added.