The Calcutta High Court on Monday (August 25, 2025) rejected a plea for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the controversial deaths at a Muharram event at Purba Medinipur’s Khejuri earlier this year, directing the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and submit a progress report in a month.
On July 12, two persons, namely 23-year-old Sujit Das and 65-year-old Sudhir Chandra Paik, touted to be local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, were found dead at the venue of a Muharram programme in the Khejuri’s Janka area.
While the Leader of the Opposition of West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, had claimed that they were lynched for communal reasons, the Trinamool Congress and the West Bengal Police had maintained that the deaths were caused by an electrocution accident during the programme.
“The Additional Director General of the CID will constitute a SIT under the leadership of the Deputy Inspector General of CID and officers of the CID’s homicide department. Let them investigate and submit a progress report… if I give it to the CBI, it will be just a gallery show,” a single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh said in open court on Monday in response to a petition for the probe to be transferred to the central agency.
The plaintiffs had sought a CBI investigation into the deaths of Das and Paik, citing discrepancies in the investigation by the State police and the need for a ‘fair investigation by a competent agency’.
However, the bench noted that ‘differences’ in the two post-mortem reports submitted to the court have ‘weakened the case in favour of the accused’ and that the case cannot be transferred to the CBI at this stage.
Earlier, the families of the two deceased had moved the Calcutta High Court alleging foul play and sought a second post-mortem, after the first autopsy at the district hospital concluded that they died of electrocution.
However, the second post-mortem, which was conducted at Kolkata’s Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER, also known as SSKM Hospital) noted marks of assault on the body of the two deceased.
“Why should there be such a diametrically opposite opinion? … The opinions are such that they can change the course of any investigation. These are corroborative evidence at the investigation stage that lead the investigating officer how to carry forward the investigation,” Justice Ghosh noted on Monday (August 25, 2025), citing the difference in the conclusion by forensic medicine experts in the two autopsies.
