Full vax must for gatherings

New Delhi: Mass gatherings should be discouraged but

if attending it is essential then full vaccination should be a prerequisite, the Union

government said on Thursday and urged people

to get the jabs and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, especially during the

festive season. It warned the second wave of coronavirus infection in India was not yet over even though the weekly positivity rate was showing an overall

declining trend.

The CBI on Thursday filed its first chargesheet in the postpoll violence in West Bengal. This was filed at Rampurhat court in Birbhum against two accused who have been remanded in the judicial custody after their arrest for the murder of a BJP worker, Manoj Jaiswal.

A CBI team interrogated the duo in jail recently after getting the court’s permission and before submitting the chargesheet. Jaiswal, a Kolkata businessman, was found lying killed at Nalhati on May 12 after he was allegedly abducted by a group of TMC workers.

The Mamata Banerjee government has, meanwhile, assigned 10 senior IPS officers to assist the special investigation team set up on the orders of the Calcutta high court on August 19 to probe the incidents of postpoll violence. This came a day after Justice Rajesh Bindal, acting chief justice, said he was aware that the SIT was yet to start work after one of the writ petitioners had complained of delays.

In an order on September 1, the state home department divided West Bengal into four zones and a headquarters for the SIT in line with the CBI, which has already launched its probe and filed 34 FIRs for heinous crimes like murder, gangrape and rape.

Each zone has two IPS officers who were drawn from the group of 10. At the headquarters wing, DIG (Railways) Soma Das Mitra and DC (Reserve Force) of Kolkata police Subhankar Bhattacharya have been deputed.

The North Zone has IG (North Bengal) D.P. Singh and DIG (Malda Range) Praveen Kumar Tripathi, while the South Zone has ADG (South Bengal) S.N. Gupta and DIG (Barasat Range) Prasun Banerjee. In the West Zone, ADG (Western Zone) Sanjay Singh and IG (Burdwan Range) B.L. Meena have been deputed. The Kolkata Zone has additional police commissioner (III) Tanmay Roy Chaudhuri and joint commissioner (armed police) Nilanjan Biswas deputed there.