Suhrid Dutta remanded to 14-day judicial custody

Chandannagar, Jul 12 (UNI) A district court today remanded CPI(M) leader Suhrid Dutta to 14-day judicial custody in connection with Tapasi Malik murder case.

The CBI submitted that the accused was the main planner, who had sent five persons to kill Tapasi, whose charred body was recovered from the project area of Tata Motors' small car at Singur in December.

CBI counsel Pradip Tapassi argued that Dutta should be remanded to judicial custody for the sake of investigation and submitted a CD to the court as prima facie evidence of its case.

Praying for bail of Dutta, Singur zonal committee secretary of the CPI(M), defence counsels Arindam Bhattacharyya and Keshab Lal Mukherjee alleged that the CBI was a biased organisation and had violated human rights in the name of investigation.

They had also alleged that Dutta was mentally and physically tortured and demanded that the CBI should be taken off from the case.

Referring to this, Mr Tapassi said the state government had entrusted the CBI to probe the incident, and the onus was on the former to first withdraw the case.

After hearing both sides, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Pradip Bandopandhya rejected the bail prayer of the defence counsels and remanded Dutta to judical custoday.

Dutta would be produced on July 26.

Meanwhile, Arambagh CPI(M) MP Anil Basu and several party supporters were inside the court room, while a huge number of supporters of both Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) were present outside the court.

Tension ran high since morning and a posse of police force was posted to preempt any eventuality.

UNI