Kolkata, April 4 – The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has begun investigating the harassment of judicial adjudication officers in Kaliachak, West Bengal’s Malda district, will focus its initial report on whether the incident was driven by spontaneous public anger or was a pre-planned attempt to disrupt the ongoing judicial adjudication process.
According to sources, the agency's initial findings, to be submitted to the Supreme Court next week, will focus on whether the incident was a result of the spontaneous public grievance due to the deletion of names of a large percentage of voters referred for judicial adjudication, or whether there was any pre-planned method in orchestrating that grievance into the harassment of the judicial officers.
The NIA team had already started its investigation into the matter after reaching Kaliachak on Friday afternoon. Although the members of the investigating team have refrained so far from speaking to the media on the progress of the investigation, sources aware of the development say that currently they are collecting background information about the 35 persons accused so far in the matter, especially the mastermind, Mofakkarul Islam, and Maulana Shahjahan Ali, the All India Secular Front (AISF) candidate from the Mothabari assembly constituency in the West Bengal assembly elections, which are scheduled later this month.
The main investigation team comprises 15 officers, led by a Superintendent of Police-rank officer, drawn from NIA units in New Delhi and Mumbai. However, they are assisted by another team of NIA officials posted in Kolkata, who are familiar with the local language of the region.
A division bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, earlier this week directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hand over the charge of investigation in the matter of harassment of judicial adjudication officers either to the NIA or to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Later, the ECI opted for the NIA.
On Wednesday, seven judicial officers, including three women, were held hostage inside a block office at Kaliachak in Malda district by a group of voters whose names had been deleted during the process of judicial adjudication under the "logical discrepancy" category.
At around 1 a.m. on Thursday, a large police contingent led by senior district officials reached the spot, dispersed the protesters, rescued the judicial officers, and escorted them to a safe location. They had been gheraoed for around nine hours.
There were also reports that, even while being shifted to a safe location after their rescue, an attempt was made to attack the convoy.
