Justice awaits mysterious death of whistle blower

Guwahati, August 8 (NNN): The local people's refusal to give the whole skeletal remains of whistle blower Arup Kalita to a forensic lab has become the main reason why it is near impossible now to deliver justice in the murder case of Kalita. The villagers have already cremated the skeletal remains except a piece of it dispatched to a Forensic Science Laboratory based in Guwahati.
Arup Kalita, 28, had gone missing on August 25 last year after he lodged a complaint at a forest office at Kukurmara, 50km southwest of here, against timber smuggling in the area. On last Tuesday, the skeletal remains of his body were fished out from a pond near that forest office.  Kalita was the secretary of the All Assam Non-Tribal Students’ Union (AANTSU). Along with union member Dhiren Mali, he had gone to the forest depot officer’s office at Kukurmara in Kamrup district to complain about timber being smuggled out in trucks of sand illegally extracted from the forest. Mali escaped after forest officials allegedly in league with the timber mafia went physical. But Kalita remained untraced since.
Members of his family had lodged an FIR at the Chhaygaon police station, but it wasn’t until the Gauhati High Court issued an order on the basis of a writ petition last week that the police swung into action on last Tuesday. Today, the All Assam Non-Tribal Students Association (Aantsa) has lifted its 72-hour shut down after the police arrested two forest employees on suspicion of involvement in Kalita’s murder.
The search for his body on August 2 followed a Gauhati High Court order. The court had pulled up the police for not acting on a FIR Kalita’s kin had lodged a year ago.