GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said he was ready to hand over the probe into the death of 30-year-old sub-inspector Junmoni Rabha to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) if her family wasn’t satisfied with the CID probe.
“The CID team will be in touch with Rabha’s family. There’s no question of sparing anyone if found guilty,” he said in Guwahati following demands by the Congress. In a letter to Sarma, Congress leader Debabrata Saikia said that apart from a probe by a central agency, there should be a separate probe by a sitting judge and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the allegations of extortion and other charges against the deceased officer.
Amid the back-and-forth between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress over the death, the state police on Thursday said that a mini-commercial vehicle driver Pranab Das, who claimed to have witnessed the death of the police officer early on Tuesday. The driver of the truck involved in the accident also surrendered on Thursday evening. Police identified him as Sumit Kumar.
Sub-inspector Junmoni Rabha, who was posted at the Morikolong outpost in the Nagaon district, was found dead in her vehicle at Sarubhagia in Kaliabor at about 2am on Tuesday, apparently after her car’s head-on collision with a truck coming from the opposite direction.
Pranab Das, however, told journalists on Wednesday that he saw the incident and claimed that Rabha’s private vehicle was stationary when it was hit by a speeding truck coming from the opposite direction. Das, a resident of Bokakhat, also claimed that a person exited Rabha’s vehicle around 10 minutes prior to the accident, suggesting that the officer may have been killed.
He was taken into custody by the police from Guwahati when he was giving an interview to a private TV channel.
Incidentally, police in Lakhimpur district lodged a case against Rabha on May 15, a day prior to her death, on charges of criminal conspiracy, dacoity, wrongful confinement and extortion.
The Assam police ordered a CID probe on Tuesday into both the accident and the case lodged against the deceased policewoman after Rabha’s mother alleged foul play in the death of her daughter and alleged that senior district police officials raided her house on the night of the accident,
“We lost a police officer under unfortunate circumstances. Since it involved two districts, I ordered an inquiry immediately. CID teams are conducting investigations both in Nagaon and Lakhimpur districts. We will wait for their report before taking any further action,” DGP Gyanendra Pratap Singh said on Wednesday.
Singh refused to comment on claims made by Pranab Das and stressed that everything will be clear after CID, which has been given a “free hand”, completes its investigation.
On Thursday, an audio clip of a telephone conversation in which one person claimed that Rabha was murdered before the truck hit her vehicle also went viral. Police refused to comment on this.
On Thursday, the Nagaon district police also transferred 148 police personnel (mostly constables) mentioning the move was “in the interest of public service”.
Rabha was arrested last year on charges of corruption and financial irregularities following the arrest of her fiancée in May. He was accused of cheating. Rabha was later granted bail and she resumed regular duties.
The police officer was in the news in January last year when she alleged that a ruling BJP MLA Amiya Kumar Bhuyan had threatened her over the phone—an audio clip of the conversation had got leaked and went viral on social media.
