Roy chargesheeted in MLA murder case

BJP leader plans to move Calcutta High Court

In a major blow to the BJP, it’s national vice president Mukul Roy, also a key strategist of the party for the next year’s Assembly Election in West Bengal, was chargesheeted by the criminal investigation department (CID) of the state police on Saturday in the murder of Trinamul Congress MLA of Krishnaganj Satyajit Biswas in Nadia in February last year.

Mr Roy has been booked under sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the CID before the additional chief judicial magistrate at Ranaghat Court in Nadia in the high profile case which saw Biswas being shot dead from point blank range at a Saraswati Puja mandap near his residence.

The senior BJP leader’s name was not in the last two chargesheets in the same case however.

Alleging political vendetta by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, also the home minister, he wondered, “It can happen, why not? Afterall who is the CM? Who is adding the names in the chargesheet? Who is the minister of the department concerned? Doesn’t she know who are the accused in the case? So it is hilarious if I am chargesheeted on her instructions.”

Mr Roy is planning to move the Calcutta High Court to appeal to quash the chargesheet against him.

He is one of the five accused, named in the FIR, and also faced questioning by the state detective agency. In May last year, three accused including assailant Abhijit Pundari were chargesheeted by the CID after their arrest. But Mr Roy was spared.

In September Ranaghat BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar, who also faced the CID’s grilling during a probe in the same case, was slapped with IPC sections 302 and 120B in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the CID before the court for his alleged

role in conspiracy after his call records revealed his conversation with Abhijit and another accused before the MLA's murder. The CID had then suspected Mr Roy’s role but sought more time, which was granted by the court till December 14, for a probe against him.

When contacted, Roy rubbished the charges and said that he had “never believed in violence in politics”.

“There are at least 45 cases pending against me. I do not believe in the politics of violence and never indulge in such kinds

of things. I challenge Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the police minister to say it in public that I have such kind of taste. I was never involved in such things when I was with her party and not now when I am a member of another political party. I have total faith in the judiciary of our country,” Roy told PTI.

BJP’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya termed the CID’s action against Roy as the “conspiracy of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee”.