Nun-rape gang leader arrested at Sealdah stn

KOLKATA/KRISHNAGORE: Milan Sarkar, the leader of the gang involved in the Ranaghat nun’s rape, was arrested at Sealdah railway station on Thursday night along with a henchman soon after they got off a train. Both Sarkar and aide Ahidul Islam are from Jessore in Bangladesh.
Milan was on the run for 51 days and had sneaked back across the border after the horrific crime.This may be the biggest breakthrough in the case but sleuths admit the probe is far from over. They are yet to ascertain who raped the elderly nun during the raid on the convent on March 14. Three of the eight suspects are yet to be arrested and there is no trace of the looted money.
SSP-HQ Chirantan Nag said CID had specific information that Milan and Ahidul would try to travel to Kolkata on Thursday night. “We arrested them near Sealdah station’s main platform after they reached Kolkata by train,” said Nag. But CID officers avoided a clear answer when asked why Milan would take the risk of re-entering India when he was the one who alerted other gang members to flee after the incident. “He has been travelling frequently to and from Bangladesh. He might have come back to plan another major crime or to an aide,” said an officer at the CID HQ.
Cellphone tracking and coordination among Indian agencies and Bangladesh authorities led to the breakthrough, say sources. Milan and his men are suspected in several more robberies that ended in rape, including at least three in Bengal, and a few in Rajasthan and Punjab. The gang was allegedly involved in violent robberies in Malda and Balurghat.
CID says Milan was the first person identified in the CCTV images. Ahidul wasn’t caught on CCTV cameras but his features match the sixth sketch drawn from eyewitness descriptions. Anita Sarkar — the wife of alleged ringleader Gopal Sarkar — and some neighbours from Habra’s Goalbari locality had picked out Milan from the CCTV image gallery and identified most of the criminals by name. “She identified Milan Sarkar, who is one of their relatives and often visited them from Bangladesh. We might seek their help again during an identification parade,” said an officer.
Milan and Ahidul face separate charges for entering India illegally. They were produced in a Ranaghat court, where magistrate Papia Das allowed CID full term custody (14 days) of both accused. The court also allowed CID to conduct an identification parade of another suspect, Khaledur Rehman alias Mintu, take his judicial statement and collect a specimen of his blood.
Milan’s arrest has brought some breathing space for the CID, which is also investigating Thursday’s mysterious blast at Pingla in West Midnapore that killed 12 people, six of them minors. A section of the CID was upset earlier that chief minister Mamata Banerjee wanted to hand over the Ranaghat probe to CBI. The central agency refused to take it, and CID was under pressure to show results.