The High Court of Tripura on July 27 summoned BJP MLA Ramprasad Paul and four others to appear before the court in person on July 29 next in connection of a post-violence case under Amtali police station area of Agartala.
After inspecting the case diaries in presence of the investigating officers, justice Arindam Lodh directed the accused persons to appear before the court. Three separate FIRs were lodged with an incident of political clash that took place on May 23 last after final phase of general elections.
MLA Paul was named in one of the FIRs as accused but police did not act properly that made the victims aggrieved and insisted them to move high court. The court expressed serious resentment over the role of police.
The court observed, “It is found that there are three complaints relating to the same incident, on the basis of which, three FIRs have been registered by the officer-in-charge of Amtali Police station. But surprisingly, I find that in the three FIRs the place of occurrence is different where some of the accused persons appear to be common. This is a mysterious circumstance”.
While hearing the bail petition of accused persons named in three cases, the court observed that police action was not at all sufficient rather there was an attempt to shield the accused, which made the justice unhappy. The court also observed that the investigating officer did not record the statements of the complainant under section-64 of CrPc that marked as a clear dereliction of duty on the part of police.
Earlier, the court summoned the three investigating officers to present in the court with case dairy (CD). During hearing justice Lodh asked all three police officers about the progress of the investigations and also asked why they are silent of a particular case where MLA himself is accused of criminal acts, but the IO of case could not satisfy the court with his reply.
Though, police claimed that they had organized several raids to arrest few persons, the court reprimanded the IOs to ensure the appearance of five accused persons MLA Ramprasad Paul and his brother Tulsi Paul along with Shankar Chakraborty, Kartik Das and Ajay Patari of the case without fail before 2 pm on July 29.
