Clean chit for Bengal BJP chief in Srinu Naidu's murder

MIDNAPORE: Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh was on Wednesday given a clean chit by West Midnapore SP Bharati Ghosh in the January 11 murder of Kharagpur don Srinu Naidu.
Soon after the murder, the police officer had hinted that a “key figure” was behind the crime. This was largely seen as a reference to Kharagpur MLA Dilip Ghosh.
At a press conference on Wednesday with arrested accused Basab Rambabu, Srinu’s underworld rival, standing near her, SP Ghosh said: “We have arrested Rambabu 248km off Visakhapatnam.He is the prime accused in Srinu’s murder.” Rambabu was picked up from Tanuku, 248km off Visakhapatnam, on Tuesday afternoon and brought here by road.
Asked whether police now have the “key figure” she referred to after the murder, Ghosh said: “Yes, he is the key figure I first mentioned.” Asked if the Kharagpur MLA had any involvement in Srinu’s murder, the SP said: “No.”
Rambabu, the dreaded underworld don whose name spelt fear in Kharagpur during the 1990s, was later produced in Midnapore court and remanded in police custody for six days.
When his name cropped up in media reports on the Srinu murder, the BJP leader had demanded a CBI probe into the don’s killing. After the SP’s clean chit, Ghosh said: “Yes, there was an effort to link me with don Srinu Naidu’s murder. Kharagpur Municipality’s Trinamool chairman Pradip Sarkar had accused me of involvement in the crime at a public meeting.”
“Srinu’s wife had also made allegations that I had threatened her husband,” he added. “She withdrew her words, though. The SP kept hinting that there was a big head or key figure behind the murder but never spelt out any name. I had challenged those making allegations against me. I have heard that the SP has given me a clean chit. I had seen Srinu only once during last year’s assembly election campaign. I have never seen Rambabu.”
Earlier, the SP said: “We had sent police teams to Andhra Pradesh and Chennai. One of these plainclothes teams knocked on a door in the Mahi Home Country apartments at Tanuku around 12.30pm on Tuesday. Someone else opened the door but the team members went in and found Rambabu inside. He was driven back all the way from there and reached here on Wednesday morning.”
Rambabu, who was convicted for the murders of brothers and Trinamool leaders Manas Choubey and Goutam Choubey in 1999 and 2001 respectively, was out on bail granted by the Supreme Court in 2010.