Kolkata, July 11 (IANS) The West Bengal Police have arrested all five principal masterminds in connection with the lynching of a youth, 26-year-old Indrajit Tanti, on July 5 at Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district over the alleged rape and murder of a 12-year-old minor girl in the area.

Earlier, two persons, accused as masterminds in the case, were arrested by the police, and an insider from the Baruipur District Police, under whose jurisdiction the scene of crime comes, claimed that three other persons, also accused as masterminds in the lynching case, were arrested by the police on early Saturday morning following night-long operations.

However, the police have declined to reveal the identities of the three persons till they are presented at a district court in South 24 Parganas, where the public prosecutor will seek their police custody.

The body of the minor girl was recovered from a pond in the area on the morning of July 5, following which major violence and hooliganism broke out in the area on the same afternoon, and Tanti, who was declared innocent by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari based on police investigation, was brutally lynched by the unruly mob suspecting his role in the girl’s rape and murder.

The police registered three separate FIRs in the matter— the first one related to crime against the minor girl, the second one related to lynching of Tanti and the third related to massive hooliganism in the protests where public property like railway tracks and police vehicles were vandalised, and policemen were attacked.

As regards the second investigation relating to the lynching of the innocent, the investigating police attempted to identify the masterminds responsible for falsely branding Tanti as a suspect in the crime against the minor girl.

Incidentally, the Chief Minister is scheduled to visit Baruipur later in the day to inaugurate a police outpost in the Suryapur area under Baruipur, where both the crimes, the alleged rape and murder of the girl and the lynching of the innocent youth, took place.

Earlier, the police arrested four persons in connection with the crime against the girl. Out of them, one was killed in an encounter earlier this week while attempting to escape from police custody after snatching the firearm of an escorting policeman.

–IANS

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