Buddha steps in to douse fire over a Hindu-Muslim marriage gone wrong

Such a frank admission by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today betrays the growing sense of unease in the state Government as it tries to douse a raging controversy over the mysterious death of 30-year-old graphics designer Rizwanur Rahman on September 21, just over a month after he married Priyanka Todi, the daughter of prominent city businessman Ashok Todi, chairman and managing director of Lux Hosiery.

Rizwanur’s death, in fact, has elicited a response that even the 14 deaths in Nandigram didn’t — Bhattacharjee announced a judicial probe by retired Calcutta High Court Judge Justice Aloke Nath Chakraborty. Rizwanur’s mother moved the High Court today asking for a CBI probe.

The facts of the case, in brief, according to legal records:

•Rizwanur was a computer graphics designer at a city multi-media centre where he met Priyanka who was a student. The two got their marriage registered on August 18 despite protests from Priyanka’s family.

•On August 31, Priyanka moved from her sprawling Salt Lake home to Rizwanur’s two-room house in a slum in Tiljala in the eastern suburbs of the city.

•The very next day, Rizwanur was summoned by the police to the Lal Bazar headquarters. According to Rizwanur’s statements to lawyers and human-rights groups, the police allegedly asked him to either send Priyanka to her parents for a week or face criminal charges.

•On September 8, Priyanka returned to her parents’ home. When Rizwanur tried to contact her again, he found that the house was locked. He began doing the rounds of lawyers and the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), a local human-rights group.

•On September 21, Rizwanur left his home early saying he was going to meet the lawyer. According to phone records, at 10.10 am, he called Sujato Bhadra, APDR’s chief, seeking legal advice. At 10.28 am, he called a Calcutta High Court lawyer Nabaneel Dey.

•At around 11 am, police said, they found his mutilated body from the tracks between Bidhan Nagar and Dum Dum stations after a local train driver reported that he had hit a “youth in the way.”

The case has kicked off a political storm with Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee alleging that the Ashok Todi “pulled strings” to intervene in the case and the Government should probe the police role in the case.

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