The 12 people, including school principal Mamata Agarwal and a lawyer Partho Chatterjee, who were arrested in the Kolkata school shootout case were remanded to police custody by a city court on Tuesday. However, the police could not ascertain as to who had fired at the alleged trespassers who had entered the school premises in the small hours of Monday, killing two and grievously injuring a third.
“We have the CCTV footage but cannot release it immediately,” said PK Ghosh, a senior police officer, adding the police were still investigating the case trying to get to the reason of the shootout. Two persons, reportedly guards of a security agency who were killed in the incident were allegedly roped in by the stated company after they along with 16 others employed for the work trespassed into the school premises, a disputed property. They were hit by bullets allegedly from inside the school quarters.
“Though we are not sure as to who fired from inside, there is no doubt that only the principal and her security guard Pappu Khan had guns with them,” said a senior official. Aggarwal conceded that they had indeed “slept the previous night with two licensed guns as we were under constant threat from some people including a politician” who wanted us to vacate the 17-cottah premises at 9-A Short Street worth several crores.
According to sources, the property originally owned by Sailabal Sain has been disputed since 1946. later Sains willed it out to one Ratan Nahata. However, in 2010 one Sanjay Sureka claimed the property leading to a law suit. In the suit, Nahata reportedly lost out but refused to leave the premises. On Monday, sources said, the other party sent in a 18-man strong contingent to occupy the premises leading to the firing allegedly from the principal’s side who had been one of the occupants of the premises.
The guardians of the school on Tuesday staged a demonstration in favour of the principal saying she was a compassionate person with many qualities. “She is an able administrator and a loving woman who loves and helps out children,” said a guardian adding how she was being threatened by the “intruders.”
The principal said, “We have been complaining to the police but they did not come to our rescue. Sources also said that it was the security guard of the principal who had fired back in panic hitting the two men. One person was still battling for life with a bullet still suck in his head. Meanwhile, the name of a Trinamool Congress leader Kaushik Sen who had incidentally joined the party a fortnight ago from the Congress got embroiled in the case after Aggarwal claimed Sen had been “threatening me for the past several months” adding the firing was a panic reaction “after so many leapt over the boundary in that odd hour.”