On the night of March 12, police picked up a dozen-odd men for a drunken brawl in a house in Golabati Malibagan in Habra, North 24 Parganas. They were let off on bail the next morning. A few hours later, eight of them would raid a convent in Ranaghat -some 50 km away -and unleash horrific violence on the nuns, say police.
Among them was Md Selim Sheikh, who allegedly raped the 71-year-old nun, shaming Bengal before the world.Selim and the owner of the Habra house, Gopal Sarkar, were arrested on Thursday . CID's investigation so far follows the initial line that all or most of the culprits were Bangladeshis. Selim had sneaked across the border a few days before the crime and Sarkar had come over from Bangladesh in 2002 and posed as a mason, say police.
In fact, CID officers said on Friday , Sarkar may have been the mastermind of the entire operation. He picked the target, plotted the robbery and put together a group of eight hardened Bangladeshi criminals so that they wouldn't be easily traced, say investigators. He had also planned their escape back across the border, said an officer.Sarkar's plan was so meticulous that he got three of the criminals to cross over using valid documents. They slipped out through the Gede border outpost after getting their valid Bangladeshi passports stamped, sources say . Three others crossed over illegally.
Sarkar's plan would have been foolproof had Selim and another accused, Milon Sk alias Milon Bhai, not stayed back, say police. While Selim headed off to Mumbai, where he was arrested, Milon's whereabouts are unknown. “It is now established that three criminals entered India with valid passport and visa, carried out the crime and left India with valid travel documents,“ a senior officer said.
Tracking Sarkar wasn't easy . He had no criminal record here and there wasn't even a hint of suspicion against him. CID officers started checking cellphone calls after the sisters told them that the gang made cellphone calls during the robbery and spoke in an accent prevalent in the border areas. The agency then sought a list of all calls made in a 3-5km radius. They ended up analyzing half a million calls. “Most calls have a pattern. People dial certain numbers at regular intervals. We tried to eliminate these and identify the calls that were non-regular,“ a source said. This brought down the number of suspicious calls from 5 lakh to single digits.Each one of these was eliminated, barring two. One led to Sarkar and the other to Selim in Mumbai, say sources. “If a cellphone is used, it is very difficult to erase the mobile footprints,“ he added.
The identity of the culprits was ascertained 12 days after the robbery and despite half of them being caught on CCTV . The next big challenge for CID is to track the remaining six. “If the passport and visa details are any indication, they are not in the country any more,“ said an officer. But CID is still hopeful of bringing them to justice.
Selim and Sarkar was produced in a Ranaghat court on Friday . Both were remanded in 14 days' CID remand. The court allowed investigators' plea to charge Sarkar under additional sections for harbouring criminals. Assistant public prosecutor Pradip Kumar Pramanik told the court that Sarkar is “integral to the probe“. “We suspect that he not only sheltered the criminals at his home, but also got a share of the loot,“ he said. Selim, however, insists he did not rape the nun. He says he was on guard outside the convent and did not know what went on inside.
Police say it was Sarkar who chose the Ranaghat convent because it was virtually unguarded. “The modus operandi suggests he may be in the know of many such robberies, not only in Bengal but also Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu,“ a senior CID officer said.
Among them was Md Selim Sheikh, who allegedly raped the 71-year-old nun, shaming Bengal before the world.Selim and the owner of the Habra house, Gopal Sarkar, were arrested on Thursday . CID's investigation so far follows the initial line that all or most of the culprits were Bangladeshis. Selim had sneaked across the border a few days before the crime and Sarkar had come over from Bangladesh in 2002 and posed as a mason, say police.
In fact, CID officers said on Friday , Sarkar may have been the mastermind of the entire operation. He picked the target, plotted the robbery and put together a group of eight hardened Bangladeshi criminals so that they wouldn't be easily traced, say investigators. He had also planned their escape back across the border, said an officer.Sarkar's plan was so meticulous that he got three of the criminals to cross over using valid documents. They slipped out through the Gede border outpost after getting their valid Bangladeshi passports stamped, sources say . Three others crossed over illegally.
Sarkar's plan would have been foolproof had Selim and another accused, Milon Sk alias Milon Bhai, not stayed back, say police. While Selim headed off to Mumbai, where he was arrested, Milon's whereabouts are unknown. “It is now established that three criminals entered India with valid passport and visa, carried out the crime and left India with valid travel documents,“ a senior officer said.
Tracking Sarkar wasn't easy . He had no criminal record here and there wasn't even a hint of suspicion against him. CID officers started checking cellphone calls after the sisters told them that the gang made cellphone calls during the robbery and spoke in an accent prevalent in the border areas. The agency then sought a list of all calls made in a 3-5km radius. They ended up analyzing half a million calls. “Most calls have a pattern. People dial certain numbers at regular intervals. We tried to eliminate these and identify the calls that were non-regular,“ a source said. This brought down the number of suspicious calls from 5 lakh to single digits.Each one of these was eliminated, barring two. One led to Sarkar and the other to Selim in Mumbai, say sources. “If a cellphone is used, it is very difficult to erase the mobile footprints,“ he added.
The identity of the culprits was ascertained 12 days after the robbery and despite half of them being caught on CCTV . The next big challenge for CID is to track the remaining six. “If the passport and visa details are any indication, they are not in the country any more,“ said an officer. But CID is still hopeful of bringing them to justice.
Selim and Sarkar was produced in a Ranaghat court on Friday . Both were remanded in 14 days' CID remand. The court allowed investigators' plea to charge Sarkar under additional sections for harbouring criminals. Assistant public prosecutor Pradip Kumar Pramanik told the court that Sarkar is “integral to the probe“. “We suspect that he not only sheltered the criminals at his home, but also got a share of the loot,“ he said. Selim, however, insists he did not rape the nun. He says he was on guard outside the convent and did not know what went on inside.
Police say it was Sarkar who chose the Ranaghat convent because it was virtually unguarded. “The modus operandi suggests he may be in the know of many such robberies, not only in Bengal but also Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu,“ a senior CID officer said.
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