Birbhum violence: Calcutta High Court takes suo moto cognizance, to hear matter today

Firefighters try to douse the fire after houses were set on fire at Rampurhat in West Bengal's Birbhum district (PTI photo)

New Delhi: A day after eight people were killed in a village in West Bengal's Birbhum district, the Calcutta High Court has registered a suo moto case in the incident and will hear the matter today (March 23, 2022).

The bench headed by Chief Justice will hear the matter today at 2 pm.

It is noteworthy eight people, including three women and two children, were charred to death as nearly a dozen houses were set ablaze in a village in the Birbhum district early Tuesday in a suspected fallout of the murder of a ruling TMC panchayat official Bahadur Shaikh.

Altogether 11 people have been arrested so far, and the West Bengal government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Additional Director General (CID) Gyanwant Singh to probe the incident.

The residents of Bogtui village on the outskirts of Rampurhat town were jolted out of sleep by the deafening sounds of bomb explosions. They tried to douse the flames and called the police and fire brigade for help, as flames leapt from one thatched house to another, killing seven people including two children, while another person who was rescued died later in a hospital.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar went for each other's jugular over the incident, while the Union home ministry has sought a detailed report from the state government.

A 9-member delegation of BJP MPs including the party's national vice president Dilip Ghosh, Locket Chatterjee and Arjun Singh met Home Minister Amit Shah in the national capital and sought his intervention to punish the perpetrators of the incident.

BJP president JP Nadda has also constituted a five-member committee, which includes four MPs, to visit the site of the tragedy.

(With agency inputs)