Both the Congress and the Trinamool Congress on Thursday sought to make political capital of the death of Dum Dum GRP sub-inspector Arindam Manna a key witness in the Rizwanur death case whose mutilated body was found near the railway tracks a day earlier ¿ with both calling it a case of murder. While the Howrah Youth Congress called a 12-hour bandh in three police station areas,the Trinamool created a ruckus at the police morgue of the Calcutta Medical College Hospital where Mannas body was brought for a second post-mortem on Thursday. Nearly an hour before Mannas body arrived under police escort at the morgue,the Trinamool MLA from Satgachia Sonali Guha landed there with several supporters. As the body arrived,Guha and the supporters surrounded the police vehicle and began raising anti-Left Front slogans. We want that the relatives of the deceased be allowed to be present for the post-mortem, Guha told the police present there. Trinamool supporters then raised the pitch,demanding that the post-mortem be recorded on video. We will not allow the autopsy to take place if there is no video camera, supporters said. I came here as soon as I heard that Mannas body was being brought for autopsy. It is clear he has been murdered, Guha said. In Howrah,district Youth Congress president Bibhas Hazra said the 12-hour bandh had been called in the Dasnagar,Bantra and Liluah police station areas. We wanted to protest the way the administration carried out the post-mortem on Mannas body at the Serampore Walsh hospital without a magisterial inquest. Manna told his family his life was in danger and that he was being harassed. His own colleagues in the police did not help his family members when they went to inquire after him at the Dum Dum GRP police station late on February 10 night. His family said the cops there were inebriated, Hazra said. Manna was murdered. Now,who did it cant be said. We want that a magisterial inquiry be conducted and the guilty be punished, Hazra said. Rizwanurs kin meet dead cops family,fear for lifeFollowing the unnatural death of Arindam Manna,the Rehman family has decided to ask the CBI for security. Rukbanur Rehman,the elder brother of Rizwanur,said he would try to contact the CBI office in Delhi on Friday with the request. The CBI is the investigative agency. So,it is its duty to provide security to the witnesses when a cop,one of the key witnesses,has allegedly been killed, he said. Meanwhile,Rukbanur and others of his family visited the Manna family at Dasnangar in Howrah on Thursday and voiced fears that the sub-inspector with the Dum Dum GRP might have been killed. It was Manna who had officially handed over Rizwanurs body to his family after the post-mortem on September 22,2007,said Rukbanur. Manna was a very sober person, he added. According to the charge-sheet filed by the CBI,there are 184 witnesses. A conspiracy was hatched to kill the key witness. Other witnesses are likely to be targeted, Rukbanur said.
