The families of the victims have questioned the delay in finding the boys.
Under fire for not being proactive in investigating the shocking murder of two young boys, the Kolkata police was today reprimanded by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, sources said. The case will now be investigated by the state CID (Criminal Investigation Department). The opposition BJP is demanding a CBI probe.
The main accused had kept a rope in the car with the intention of murdering the victims, the police said, on why they suspected premeditated murder.
Two class 10 students, Atanu Dey and Abhishek Naskar, were strangled in a moving car on August 22 and their bodies were dumped in a canal on the Basanti Highway near Kolkata. The bodies were finally identified day before yesterday as they had been sent to the police morgue. The families of the victims have questioned the delay in finding the boys.
The officer-in-charge of the Baguihati Police station where the complaint was registered was removed as the families of the two boys complained that the police hadn't taken their complaint seriously.
Senior West Bengal Cabinet Minister Firhad Hakim told reporters, "The OC has now been removed and the probe of the case has been handed over to the CID. The police have been instructed to complete the investigation at the soonest. The police have been ordered to bring the main accused before the court and justice soonest."
While the bodies of the boys were found by Basirhat police, they were sent to the police morgue as unidentified bodies and remained there till the police arrested an accused who confessed that the boys had been killed on August 22 itself. This lack of coordination between two police stations is believed to have led to the Chief Minister pulling up the police department, according to sources.
Police have arrested four accused for murder, and produced them in court. Abhijit Bose (25), Shamim Ali (20), Sahil Molla (20), and Dibyendu Das, also in his twenties, have been arrested. Two other accused, including the main suspect Satyendra Chowdhury, are yet to be arrested.
The motive for the kidnapping was reportedly a transaction of Rs 50,000 to buy a bike, but the police say they are looking at other possible motives too. The accused and the victims had visited a motorbike showroom before the murders, the police said.
"We had kept all possibilities open when we started our probe. In the meantime, they received ransom messages, but they could not establish contact with the kidnappers. Because ransom calls were being made, we were also very alert and were conducting the probe carefully to ensure there was no untoward incident," said Biswajit Ghosh of Bidhannagar Police.
The police also said they hadn't presumed that the boys had died until one of the arrested accused confessed to the murder.
"During our probe, we got a breakthrough when we arrested Abhijit Bose. After Bose was interrogated, he broke down and confessed that on the 22nd, he, along with Satyendra and two to three others in the car, strangled the children on the Basanti Highway between 8 and 10 pm. They admitted to dropping the two bodies at two different places ahead on the highway," Mr Ghosh said.
BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya termed the incident as remiscent of 80s and 90s Bihar, known for lawlessness and kidnappings for ransom depicted in the Hindi film 'Apharan'.
"In Bengal, all these days we have seen the business of selling jobs, now will we see a business of kidnappings here? Will a film be made on it also? This is a very tragic and unfortunate incident. And the police were reluctant to act and took no steps," Mr Bhattacharya said.