PhD scholar from Assam Pritam Bhattacharjee killed, family demands CBI probe

Karimganj, Assam: The family members of Pritam Bhattacharjee, a PhD scholar from Silchar who was robbed and murdered near a railway station in Bihar earlier this week, today demanded a CBI probe into the incident. “We have made a written appeal to the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Railway Minister Mukul Roy seeking CBI probe into the incident,” Ram Mohan Chakraborty, uncle of Pritam told reporters in Silchar. [caption id=“attachment_385018” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pritam Bhattacharjee. Image courtesy Facebook[/caption] The body of Pritam was found in a badly mutilated condition on June 16 from the railway track under Kataria overbridge, 12 km from Naugachia station in Bihar. The PhD scholar, who had boarded the Assam-Avadh Express from Guwahati on 8 July, went missing from Naugachia station the next day. Miscreants had snatched his laptop and camera during the two-minute halt at the station and the 25 year-old youth chased them on the platform. He was missing since then till his body was recovered. Even the TTE of the coach did not intervene when he was being heckled and forced to get down from the train, Chakraborty said adding that the police made no serious attempts to trace the culprits despite complaints. “It was a total failure on the part of police to remain clueless in a small place like Naugachia. Pritam was held in captivity for five days,” Chakraborty said. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) Cachar unit staged a sit-in-demonstration in Silchar on Thursday and submitted a memorandum addressed to the prime minister through the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar, demanding a CBI probe into the Pritam murder case. PTI