SIT to probe student leader Anish Khan's death: Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata, Feb 21: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that a special investigation team (SIT) will be formed to probe student leader Anish Khan's "mysterious" death that has sparked widespread protests by opposition parties.
Banerjee, who also holds the Home (Police) portfolio, said that the SIT will submit its report to her within 15 days.
She also claimed that the former Left leader, who later joined the Indian Secular Front, used to keep in touch with her party, the Trinamool Congress.
"We are forming an SIT which will be set up by the chief secretary under the DGP and it will also comprise the CID," she told a press conference at state secretariat Nabanna.
Asserting that the investigation will be impartial, she said that action will be taken against anyone found to be involved in the death of Khan.
Alleging that four people had come to their house on the night of February 18 donning police and civic volunteer uniform and pushed his son off the third floor of their house at Amta in Howrah district leading to his death, the father of the deceased has demanded a CBI investigation into the matter.
The police, however, said no law enforcer had gone to his house at that time.
Holding that the death of the student leader was unfortunate, the chief minister said, "We had good relations with Anish."
"Those who are going (to Khan's house) to show their faces on television do not know that Anish used to keep in touch with us and also helped me in the election," Banerjee said.
Khan, who had been with the SFI in the past and a prominent face in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests at Park Circus Maidan in Kolkata in late 2019 and 2020, later joined the Indian Secular Front.
Opposition parties are demanding an investigation into his death by an independent agency.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
