HC directs IPS officer Damayanti to probe Madhyamgram gangrape

, Jan 20: The Calcutta High Court today directed that

officer Damayanti Sen, who had solved the sensational Park Street

case, would investigate the alleged murder of a gangrape victim at Madhyamgram on the outskirts of the city.

Accepting the West Bengal government's proposal, Justice Dipankar Dutta directed that the court would monitor the investigation into the alleged murder of a 16-year-old girl who had died of severe burns. Justice Dutta directed that Sen would submit the report before the court before February 10 when the matter was taken up for hearing again.

Advocate-General Bimal Chatterjee had submitted before Justice Dutta last Friday that if the court permitted, Sen might be given charge of the investigation. Sen, at present DIG, CID, had been unceremoniously transferred as DIG (training) at Police Training College Barrackpore after she had cracked the case of gangrape of a woman in a moving car in the upmarket Park Street area in early 2012.

She was later made the DIG, Darjeeling Range and was transferred again in August last year as DIG, CID.

The girl's father had filed a petition before the high court seeking CBI probe into the death. Claiming that the state police has been lackadaisical in investigating the case since October 26 when the hapless girl was gangraped near her residence at Madhyamgram in the Barasat Police Station area of South 24-Parganas district, her father Ramshankar Jha prayed for CBI investigation.

The petitioner also claimed that with the police having failed to provide adequate security to the girl and her family after she was shifted to a different area for more security, it is difficult to put faith on such force to hold a proper investigation.

The victim, daughter of a taxi driver, was gangraped on October 26 last year and again when she was returning home after lodging a police complaint. She died in hospital last week due to burn injuries after she was allegedly set ablaze by associates of the rape accused.

All the accused in connection with the gangrape and alleged murder have been arrested.

PTI