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CID probe ordered into Khejuri ‘graves’

KOLKATA: The West Bengal government has directed the State’s Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the events leading to the discovery of human bones in Khejuri adjoining Nandigram.

DNA tests would be conducted to ascertain identities, Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray said here on Friday.

The bones, found under five separate mounds of earth on Thursday, would be sent to the Central Forensic Laboratory for examination, Mr. Ray said, after a meeting with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The mounds were dug up in the presence of officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Reserve Police Force under the supervision of a judicial magistrate following allegations that charred human bodies of victims of the recent violence in the Nandigram area had been buried in Khejuri.

Local leaders of both the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress claimed that bodies of their workers had been buried in these ‘graves.’

The CPI(M) leaders supported their claim by showing post-mortem reports of those who killed in violence in the last week of October.

Secretary of the state committee of the party, Biman Bose, said any talk on the issue was “meaningless” till the findings of the DNA tests were available.

The incident found an echo in the Assembly when the Trinamool Congress members staged a walkout in protest against the Speaker H.A. Halim for disallowing discussions on an adjournment motion moved by a senior MLA of the party, Saugata Roy. They raised slogans against the State government for alleged “atrocities” by CPI (M) activists, and demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister, over the Nandigram violence.

Mr. Roy, who was allowed to read out his motion, called for discussions on the Khejuri ‘graves.’

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CID probe ordered into Khejuri ‘graves’

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