CBI registers case in Netai village firing incident

Kolkata, Feb 22 (PTI) The CBI today registered a case inthe Netai firing incident in which nine persons were killedlast month, after the Calcutta High Court directed the stategovernment to handover the case to the agency.

The CBI will take over the investigation from the CIDand local police and would submit its progress report to thehigh court every fortnight as per the directions of a divisionbench comprising Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice AsimKumar Roy, official sources said.

The division bench had ordered the CID to hand over thepapers of the case and the two accused in its custody to theCBI forthwith.

The court had also directed the CBI to furnish aprogress report before it every fortnight when the mattercomes up for hearing again.

Lalgarh, where Netai village is situated, was a Maoisthotbed, but has lately been reclaimed by CPI-M which hasallegedly set up several armed camps there.

Nine villagers, including three women, were killed inindiscriminate firing from a house allegedly belonging to alocal CPI-M leader Rathin Dandapat at Netai in West Midnaporedistrict on January 7.

It has been alleged that armed CPI-M cadres had set up acamp in the two-storeyed house and had been threatening andbrowbeating the villagers into participating in armedtraining.

Six CPI-M workers and leaders, including Lalgarh localcommittee secretary were named in the FIR and the CID hadannounced a reward for the information about them.

Two persons -- Aswini Chalak and Abani Singh -- werearrested just a day before the last day''s hearing into thecase earlier this week.

The CBI will start probe on the basis of FIR filed bythe CID and local police, the sources said.