HC blow to Kolkata cops: CBI to probe Rizwanur death

Kolkata: In a major setback to the Kolkata Police in Rizwanur case, the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ordered a CBI enquiry into the suspicious death of the 30-year-old graphics designer.

Rizwanur Rehman had been found dead beside a railway track in Kolkata on September 21 under mysterious circumstances days after his marriage to a Hindu girl, who is the daughter of an industrialist. He had earlier written to various human rights groups, claiming that he was allegedly being harassed by the police to leave his Hindu wife.

Rizwanur's death has led to a public outcry in West Bengal and there has been increasing pressure on the state government to initiate action against some top police officials, including Kolkata Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee.

Some of the top police officials are alleged to have intimidated Rizwan, asking him to separate from his wife, allegedly at the behest of the girl's family.

Rizwan's family, which has been opposing the probe by the state CID and His mother Kishwar Jahan and elder brother Rukbanur had filed a petition before the high court, seeking a CBI inquiry into his death. They claimed they did not have faith in any inquiry conducted by any state agency.

In an interim order, Justice Soumitra Pal of the high court directed the CBI to submit a report before it within two months.

The HC took note of Kolkata Police Commissioner's claim that Rizwanur's death was a suicide. The court said as a citizen of India, the mother has a fundamental right to know how her son died. Interestingly, 25 days have passed since Rizwanur's death and the police have not registered a single FIR in the case till date.

Under the circumstances, the CID could not hold an inquiry into the death as no court has asked it to probe the case, the HC ruled.

The state government has also ordered a judicial enquiry into the case by a retired judge. Both the probes will now run parallelly. The report of the judicial enquiry will, however, be not binding while the state government will have recognise the official CBI probe.

Reacting to the court order, Rizwan's elder brother Rukbanur called it a 'landmark judgement' and termed it a 'victory for the common people'. "We always had strong confidence in the judiciary and the judiciary has done justice in the case," he said.