AICSU urges Dhami to shift trial regarding Anjel Chakma murder case

The Tripura-based tribal body termed the 24-year old’s murder to be “racially motivated”. State CM says such an incident never occurred in Uttarakhand before.

Sagnik Bhaduri,West Bengal

The All-India Chakma Students’ Union has appealed to Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami to transfer the trial regarding the grotesque murder of the 24-year-old Anjel Chakma.

Chakma, a 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura, was brutally stabbed by an allegedly intoxicated group of an allegedly intoxicated group of individuals on December 9 after he was subjected to racial profiling and discrimination. The 24-year-old, whose last words were, “I am an Indian”, breathed his last on December 26.

Five accused, including two minors, have been arrested by the police on December 14. However, the sixth accused-a Nepalese national-is believed to have absconded to his country.

Dishyamuni Chakma, the AICSU president, said on Monday that a letter authored by the Union had been forwarded to the Chief Minister urging the murder case to be transferred, preferably to Delhi, citing reasons that the deceased Anjel Chakma’s family “has lost their faith in the Uttarakhand police” due to “lapses”.

Furthermore, the AICSU president voiced the demand for the case’s investigation to be entrusted with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The harrowing murder cuts to the heart of India’s democratic and pluralist fabric as the same is being engulfed by the ruling BJP’s unifocal and communal tinted lens of its monolithic Hindutva project. It has also exposed the bureaucratic lacuna by the authorities which include-a three-day delay in registering the FIR, the Selakui police station personnel’s denial to register the complaint on multiple occasions, the police authorities’ inability to invoke appropriate legal provisions during the initial stage and senior police officers attempting to distort the incident by framing what is originally an act of racism as a mere scuffle.

According to the complaints raised by the AICSU,the hospital body did not inform the police that the critically injured Chakma was admitted to a private hospital as is mandated in a medico-legal case.

The AICSU has contended that it is necessary for the case to be transferred outside Uttarakhand for it is tied to the safety of eyewitness and the deceased’s family members.” Action should be taken against the police officials concerned for not registering the FIR and for misleading or distorting facts and protecting the accused. The absconding accused must be arrested immediately, “said the AICSU president. Furthermore, he voiced the demand for the implementation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989 alongside a compensation of ₹2 crore to the victim’s family.

Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami conversed, through a phone call, with Tarun Prasad Chakma (the father of Angel Chakma). Mr. Dhami lamented the incident and stated the State Government stood with the victim’s family. In his conversation with the deceased’s father, Mr. Dhami said that while the five accused have been nabbed, the sixth accused have absconded to Nepal with authorities on hot pursuit and a reward announcement regarding his whereabouts.