‘ASI was not keen to report to duty today’

ASI Tapash Choudhury was unwilling to report for duty at Harimohan Ghosh College on this fateful Tuesday. Attached to the Watch Section of the Special Branch of Kolkata Police, the 53-year-old officer mostly carried out his duty in mufti (in civilian attire) instead in uniform. His nature of the job being gathering intelligence.

Though the exact nature of his reluctance to report to duty may never be known, but if a colleague of him is to be believed, ASI Choudhury was fully aware that a violence will take place in the college which will be "difficult for the police to handle".

"He was a bit apprehensive to go as he knew the report of the Special Branch submitted to the police headquarters. We had inputs and information that there would be a clash between the Congress-backed students' union and the Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad. The local Trinamool leaders had told the local police officers that they would be present at the college premises and would not allow the students of rival students' union to file the nomination papers for college election," a senior officer of the Special Branch who worked with the slain ASI told The Indian Express on condition of anonymity. "Tapash knew everything about the report. Last night, after the news of tension in the Garden Reach area reached us, Tapash called and said that the situation would be difficult for the police to handle," the officer added.

"Tapash was reluctant to go to duty when his name was selected on the duty roster," he added.

An inconsolable Minati, the ASI's wife, too, kept on screaming as how her husband did not want to go to the duty at Harimohan Ghosh College today.

After she returned to her Thakurpukur home in southern outskirts of Kolkata from the hospital morgue, Minati broke down and fell unconscious.

... contd.

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