“We met her and asked her if she needed any help from us. She pleaded with us and that she wanted to move out and go back to her normal life. She looked distressed and traumatised. From the few words that she said about Rizwanur it appeared she was deeply in love with her husband,” Bagchi said at the office of the State Women’s Commission.

The members said Priyanka did not seem to have been able to reconcile to the fact that Rizwanur was no more. “She wanted to go back to her husband. She said that she got the news of Rizwanur’s death at Tirupati where she went along with her family. It was her father Ashok Todi who gave her the news of Rizwanur’s death. Now, she said there was no point in going back as Rizwanur was no more and the situation had become too complicated,” Gairika Ghosh, another commission member told The Indian Express. “Priyanka said she married Rizwanur without the consent of her parents because she thought they would approve of it later,” Ghosh said.

The members said she and Rizwanur were summoned to the police station twice. “She said the police were nice to her. They asked her why she had left her parents’ house without informing them. They also told her to go and meet her parents,” commission member Uma Basu told The Indian Express.

Meanwhile, Advocate-General Bolai Roy submitted before Justice Soumitra Pal of Calcutta High Court that the CID or any other body had no scope of conducting an investigation into the unnatural death of Rizwanur Rehman as it could only conduct an inquiry. Therefore, the High Court should not direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the matter, he pleaded.

Roy added that Rizwanur’s brother Rukbanur had lodged a complaint with Karaya police station stating that his brother’s death was unnatural. He had also alleged that Ashok Todi may have had a hand in it.

Defending the role of Karaya police station, Roy argued that unnatural death was not a cognizable offence and therefore the police station could not start an investigation into the matter. A police station could conduct an investigation only after receiving information that a cognizable offence had been committed under CrPC. Also, the allegation against Todi was only a presumption and not based on fact or evidence.

Roy also moved the plea that the Kolkata Police Commissioner could not interfere in the work of the CID as it was under the control of the Director General of West Bengal Police. The agency has already summoned Kolkata Police officials to question them about the Rizwanur case.