Kolkata, Feb 12 (IANS) A special court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday remanded 36 accused individuals arrested in connection with the recent violence at Beldanga in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district of West Bengal to judicial custody till February 19.

Of the 36 accused persons, 31 were presented before the special NIA court through a virtual hearing after NIA officials failed to produce them physically due to the inability of the Murshidabad district police to provide adequate security escorts.

Five of the accused are minors and were not produced before the court virtually. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court remanded all 36 accused persons to judicial custody till February 19.

The matter has been posted for the next hearing on February 17.

During the proceedings on Thursday, counsel for the West Bengal government argued that the NIA had been “overactive” in the case in view of the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state scheduled later this year.

This is the second occasion on which the NIA has failed to produce the accused physically before the court, citing the Murshidabad district police’s inability to provide adequate security escort.

Earlier, on February 5, the NIA team had also failed to present the accused in court for the same reason, as the state police were unable to provide sufficient personnel for escort duty.

It is learnt that although the NIA had submitted a requisition to the Murshidabad district police, the latter did not accede to the request on the grounds that police personnel were engaged in duties related to the Higher Secondary examinations conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, which commenced on Thursday.

The NIA took over the investigation into the Beldanga violence following a direction from the Calcutta High Court granting liberty to the Union Home Ministry to initiate a probe by the central agency. The violence had allegedly broken out over fake news regarding the murder of a migrant worker from Murshidabad in Jharkhand.

Subsequently, the Jharkhand Police issued a statement clarifying that the migrant worker had died by suicide, citing the post-mortem report to support its conclusion and terming the earlier reports of murder as false.

Although the West Bengal government challenged the Calcutta High Court’s order before the Supreme Court, a two-judge Bench of the apex court on February 11 dismissed the state’s plea and directed the NIA to submit a status report before the Calcutta High Court in a sealed cover. The report is to indicate, whether post-investigation or during the course of investigation, if a prima facie case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) is made out on the basis of the material collected.

–IANS

src/pgh