Kolkata:
The gangrape and murder of a 20-year-old at West Bengal's Kamduni village, 40 kms from Kolkata, is becoming a nightmare for Mamata Banerjee.
Following public outrage over the brutal rape and murder of the college girl on June 7, the chief minister promised on June 17 that the Criminal Investigation Department or CID would file a charge sheet in 15 days.
That deadline was missed by a week, but the 147-page chargesheet filed in a trial court on Wednesday was so incoherent, that the judge expressed his displeasure.
The Calcutta High Court agreed with that stand and today said it will monitor the probe. Without naming the chief minister, the judge said the promise of a chargesheet within 15 days was populist.
Some 1000 protesters in Kolkata, mainly political activists, and angry villagers at Kamduni today demanded a CBI probe into the case.
Said a Kamduni villager, "We cant rely on the CID anymore. We are disgusted with it. If we have to go to Delhi for a CBI probe, we will go to Delhi. If that doesn't work, we will go on a hunger strike."
In Kolkata, a Congress protestor, Rajesh, said, "We want the Kamduni rape and murder to be properly investigated and the guilty punished. The way there is an attempt to protect the accused right from the start, we are protesting that."
The most glaring discrepancy in the charge sheet that has been filed is, the seven men arrested in the case have been accused of gangrape but the case diary says only one of them kidnapped, raped and killed the girl.
Another huge lapse - the chargesheet was filed without a forensic report. According to police sources, it takes six weeks for a full forensic report but the CID went ahead without it in an attempt to keep the commitment made by Ms Banerjee.
Directing the CID to file a final probe report on July 30, the high court said the "judiciary will not succumb to such public pressure but act impartially to ensure that accused are defended by lawyers and no innocent is falsely implicated."
The trial court will take up the framing of charges on July 12.