What makes CID posting unattractive to young cops in Bengal

There is a lack of manpower in the Criminal Investigation Department, and more importantly lack of enough sub-inspectors and inspectors having experience in critical and complicated investigations is adding to everyday frustration. A frustrated CID officer in the rank of inspector said that none of the batchmates of the police training school are interested in posting in CID as the pressure is too much.

Kolkata: Officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal police are gasping for much needed room to breathe. Apart from other regular cases, the CID sleuths are really having a tough time because of the excessive pressure of politically sensitive cases in the politically sensitive state of West Bengal.

Be it the firing by central forces personnel at Stitalkuchi in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal during the recently concluded West Bengal polls or the probe into the mysterious death of the former bodyguard of the leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, the pressure of politically sensitive cases happening outside Kolkata is building up on the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal police. Case diaries of all such politically sensitive cases are sent directly to the CID headquarter in Kolkata from the local police station level.

In addition, there is a lack of manpower in general in the department, and more importantly lack of enough sub-inspectors and inspectors having experience in critical and complicated investigations. A frustrated CID officer in the rank of inspector said that none of the batchmates of the police training school are interested in posting in CID. "The pressure is too much here," he said.

"As it is, the glamour associated with the police uniform is missing in CID. In addition, probing highly sensitive cases pose immense mental pressure on the probe officials. For the sub-inspector and inspector level officers, CID posting is no more attractive," said an additional superintendent level officer on strict condition of anonymity.

As a result, the number of pending case diaries in CID is increasing every day. On one hand, the number of cases is increasing every day, on the other there is a shortage of staff.

Soon after the West Bengal assembly elections were announced, the CID was burdened with a number of high-profile and politically sensitive cases. The reported attack on the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during her election campaign at Beerpara in East Midnapore district was one such case. It followed similar high-profile and sensitive cases like firing by central forces at Cooch Behar's Sitalkuchi during the election, killing five persons.

The latest are the probes in the mysterious death of Subharata Chakraborty, former bodyguard of the state's leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari and the killing of a Trinamool Congress leader at Mongolkot in East Burdwan district. None of the top CID officials were willing to give any official statement on the progress of these cases.

But from the development, it is evident that the progress has not been satisfactory. For example, the CID sleuths are yet to make any arrest in the case of the crude bomb attack against the state's minister, Zakir Hossain before the assembly elections. Although Bangladeshi terror links were suspected in the case, there had not been any progress on these lines.

In regards to Sitalkuchi firing, the then district police superintendent of Cooch Behar and the former inspector-in-charge of Mathabhanga police were summoned and questioned at the CID office in Kolkata. But the probe officials could not make much progress on the basis of their statements. Even the ballistic reports filed by the state's forensic department could not throw much light. And in case of the purported attack on the chief minister during her poll campaign, the investigation process has stopped at the level of a couple of spot visits and the forensic tests of the vehicle concerned.

A senior state police official, on strict condition of anonymity, said that CID lost much of its sheen since K Jayraman was shifted out of the chair of the department's deputy inspector general. "Without proper guidance from the higher level, the sub-inspector and inspector level officers in CID are facing difficulties in smoothly carrying forward the probe. Besides, one CID inspector at a time is handling five to six cases. So often proper and detailed spot visits are not happening," he said.

He also said that currently, around 300 pending cases are lying at the office of CID.