Indian Supreme Court to hear Felani case petition on Oct 6

India’s Supreme Court will hear on Oct 6 the petition filed over the murder of 15-year-old Bangladeshi girl Felani Khatun.

The court fixed the date on Wednesday, West Bengal-based Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) Executive Director Kirity Roy told bdnews24.com.
 
MASUM and Dhaka-based Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK) helped Felani’s father Nurul Islam to file the petition on Aug 14.
 
In it, Islam said Felani and her family in Bangladesh’s Kurhigram were denied justice and demanded compensation.
 
He also demanded a retrial and an inquiry by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) or an independent agency.
 
BSF’s Choudhuryhat camp troopers had shot dead the teenage girl on Jan 7, 2011, near an international border checkpoint in northern West Bengal’s Cooch Bihar district.
 
She was crossing a barbed-wire fence at the Anantapur border point in Kurhigram’s Phulbarhi Upazila on her way back to Bangladesh with her father, who lived in Delhi for around 10 years.
 
Her motionless body, dangling on the fence, created huge uproar in both Bangladesh and India.
 
A special BSF court had tried its 181 Battalion constable Amiya Ghosh, the only accused in the killing, in 2013.
 
But it let him off on Sep 6, 2013, saying the evidence was 'inconclusive and insufficient'.
 
A retrial, ordered by the BSF chief, by the same court also acquitted Ghosh of the charges on July 2 this year.
 
Kurhigram’s Public Prosecutor Abraham Lincoln said told bdnews24.com: “The hearing date was set by the chief justice of the Indian Supreme Court. We now have an opportunity to get justice.”