Kolkata: A Salt Lake court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Rajganj BDO Prasanta Barman in connection with a gold trader murder case. The warrant came a day after the 72-hour deadline set by the Calcutta High Court — after cancelling his anticipatory bail and directing him to surrender — expired at 8 pm on Thursday.
Appealing for the arrest warrant, the state counsel told the court that they suspect Barman is already absconding and has fled to another state. The counsel urged the need to arrest and question him at the earliest.
"The deadline ended yesterday and he has still not surrendered or communicated with Bidhannagar Police. We have intelligence inputs that he may have fled to another state. We need him for the investigation and thus there is a need to arrest him at the earliest," Bivas Chatterjee, the special public prosecutor of the case, told the court.
Chatterjee added that the cops are yet to visit the second place of occurrance — Burman's New Town flat, where the gold trader was allegedly assaulted brutally. "We need his biometrics and need to question him in presence of his other associates," he told the court.
Earlier this week, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh questioned the decision of granting anticipatory bail to him by the additional district judge in Barasat and directed the BDO to surrender within 72 hours.
Barman has already appealed before the Supreme Court challenging the HC order. The case however hasnt been heard yet.
Barman is the prime accused in the murder of Salt Lake gold trader Swapan Kamilla, whose body was found in New Town on Oct 30. Several witnesses have testified that Kamilla was abducted from his shop at Duttabad by Barman in a blue beacon-fitted car and was allegedly tortured by him and his men at his New Town home before his body was found.
Kamilla allegedly bought a gold bar from Barman's dog trainer, who had reportedly stolen it from Barman's home. Kamilla's wife lodged a murder complaint against Barman after his body was found, following which police have arrested five of his associates — Raju Dhali, Tufan Thapa, Sajal Sarkar, Vivekananda Sarkar and Gobinda Sarkar. All of them are still in prison but the BDO was granted anticipatory bail by a Barasat court on Nov 26.
Cops said they have crucial evidence, including CCTV footage, multiple witness testimonies and Burman's schedule to and from Kolkata that all prove Burman's direct involvement in the murder case. "The arrest warrant has been issued. We have activated our sources and are trying to locate and arrest him as quickly as possible," said a senior officer of Kolkata Police.