A team of Central Bureau of Investigation officials today arrived in Burdwan town to investigate the mysterious death of a college student inside a swimming pool. The officials also quizzed the father of the deceased student.
A seven-member CBI team, led by DIG, Abhay Kumar Singh went to the swimming pool from where the body of the student was fished out in September 2012 and questioned some of the operators there. They also took measurements of the pool. Last May, the CBI had filed an affidavit at the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court here before initiating the probe.
Ramen Samanta (21), was a resident of Anandapally locality in Burdwan town, affiliated with Children’s Cultural Centre, an organisation at Alamganj locality in the town. He was a second year student of English (Honours) with the Vivekananda College. He used to practice swimming at the Centre everyday late afternoon.
On 2 September 2012, the family members of the deceased had became very suspicious as the youth did not return home even though it was getting late. His mother had called up his mobile number at around 10.00 p.m. but the call was unattended. At 10.10 p.m, the family then received a call from the Centre, which stated that Ramen had suddenly fallen sick and the caller had asked the family members to rush to the Centre immediately.
Informed by the family, the police also arrived the Centre and fished out Ramen’s body from the swimming pool.
The family members then detected that the youth’s body bore marks of injury at several places, which raised their suspicion.
Debkumar Samanta, the father of the deceased youth lodged a complaint with the Burdwan Police Station bringing charges of planned murder against the Centre’s operators and some friends of his son.
Samanta stated: “My son was murdered and then his body was dumped in the pool water purposely to misguide police.”
He added: “They even tried to wash away the evidence and some of them also tried to convince me that my son was drunk.”
The police, during the course of investigation, arrested the caretaker of the pool Gopinath Chatterjee and Ramen’s trainer Prasenjit Som. Responding to a petition by the youth’s father, the case was transferred to the CID. The CID filed a report to the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court in Burdwan in which the agency stated that the youth died due to drowning and he was swimming while drunk.
The postmortem report and the forensic reports also said that remains of ethyl alcohol and sand grains could be detected in the deceased’s stomach. The CID framed charges of causing death by negligence (under section – 304 A) against Gopinath and Prasenjit.