In an explosive revelation, the accused and arrested cops, home guard Kashinath Bera and civic volunteer Pritam Bhattacharya in the alleged murder case student leader Anis Khan, said today that they were being made scapegoats.

Talking to the waiting news persons outside the court, they said that they had gone to Anis’ house on the orders of the higher officials of the Amta Police Station. On being pressed , who the officials were, they said it was the office in-charge (OC) of the thana.

On how the death took place, they merely said, “Don’t know”. They also suggested that by arresting them an effort was being made to “shield” persons behind the entire proceedings. Earlier, the duo, while being taken out from the court, had faced severe protests from the villagers, who had thronged the Uluberia court.

Meanwhile, the SIT (Special Investigation Team) today summoned the OC and other cops, who were on RT mobile on the fateful Friday night for further interrogation at Bhawani Bhawan. At Amta, a huge rally was organised by villagers headed by Anis’ father, Salem Khan, as they marched towards Amta PS to demand the arrest of the OC and CBI investigation. Tension was palpable in the area as the Congress and the SFI (Students’ Federation of India) also staged demonstrations.

A huge rally of the villagers, led by clerics of Furfura Sharif converged in the same area. Finally, a six-member delegation, led by Salem Khan visited the Amta thana to speak to the police officers. Meanwhile, in a jolt to the bereaved family, the Calcutta High Court today, while upholding the continuation of the state-appointed SIT investigation, put in place several checks and balances and ordered second postmortem of Anis Khan (28) in the presence of a district judge.

To maintain transparency and instil confidence in the petitioner’s mind regarding the investigation, the high court also said that the copy of the post-mortem report would have to be handed over to the plaintiffs and the SIT expeditiously. The court authorized the SIT to seal the mobile phone of Anis, which the family had so far refrained from handing it over to the cops. It would send it to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Hyderabad for examination.

The analysis report of the information contained in the said phone would have to be given to the petitioners and the SIT as well. The court, however, acceding to the plea of the petitioners who had expressed apprehension about the phone being tampered by the cops, ordered to analyse the contents in the presence of the district judge. The court also ruled for the TI (test identification) parade of the accused and asked the SIT to submit the report to the court within two weeks time.