Kolkata: West Bengal BJP leader and Hemtabad MLA Debendra Nath Roy died due to hanging and no other injury mark was found on his body. This information was provided in the post-mortem report released Tuesday. Earlier the BJP had claimed that Debendra Nath Roy had been murdered and had demanded a CBI probe into the matter. It did the same Tuesday also. The saffron party refused to accept the report and demanded a CBI inquiry into the incident to bring out the truth.
Roy’s body was found hanging from the ceiling of a verandah outside a shuttered shop near his home Monday. He was a resident of Bindal village in North Dinajpur.
The post-mortem report stated, “Death is due to hanging. No other injury is detected.” The report also said the ‘death is due to the effects of hanging as noted above- antemortem in nature. Further information if any will be provided after receipt of the chemical examiner’s report’.
West Bengal police have said a suicide note was found in his shirt’s pocket where he blamed two people for his death. The state’s Home Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said the police, after going through pieces of circumstantial evidence and post-mortem report, suspect Roy killed himself.
“On the basis of the post-mortem report and on examining circumstantial evidence and version of the witnesses, the West Bengal police are prima facie of the opinion that this is a case of a suspected suicide,” Bandyopadhyay told reporters at the state secretariat.
A piece of paper or note purportedly written by the deceased found in the pocket of his shirt he was wearing at that time. It ‘names two persons, provides their photographs and mobile numbers’, the home secretary added.
The WB police have examined the antecedents and activities of the two aforesaid named persons whose photos and mobile numbers were also apparently given by the deceased. It appears that these two persons are involved in some para=banking or money lending activities in the locality. “The West Bengal police are examining the context of unregistered banking,” the IAS officer said.
Roy’s family and the BJP, however, claimed he was ‘murdered by the Trinamool Congress (TMC)’, a charge denied by the ruling party West Bengal.
The BJP termed the post-mortem report a ‘cover-up and an attempt to project a murder as suicide’ and reiterated its demand for a CBI inquiry to bring out the truth.
“We don’t have faith in state police and administration. They want to cover up the matter. The post-mortem report called the ‘murder’ a suicide’, so we have no confidence in this report. The state should either hand over the investigation to CBI or order a judicial probe under the supervision of a sitting judge of the high court,” said Rahul Sinha, national secretary, BJP.