Sandeshkhali case: Prime witness Bholanath Ghosh injured, son, driver killed in road accident

Security personnel conduct a route march, at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas. (File Photo)

Bholanath Ghosh, one of the prime witnesses in the attack on ED officials in Sandeshkhali and connected CBI cases which implicated now-jailed TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan, was critically injured when a truck collided with his car in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district on Wednesday, a senior officer said.

Ghosh's younger son, Satyajit (32), and the driver of his car, Sahanur Molla (27), were killed in the accident that took place on the Basanti Highway near the Boyramari petrol pump under the Nazat Police Station limits in Basirhat, he said. The truck dragged the private vehicle and dumped it in a water body adjacent to the road, the officer said.

While the truck was found on the side of the highway, precariously dangling over the water body, the erring driver fled the spot.

Basirhat Superintendent of Police Hossain Mehedi Rahaman confirmed that injured Ghosh was first taken to a local hospital and later shifted to a private hospital in Kolkata.

The bodies of the deceased were sent to the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata for post-mortem examinations, he added.

Ghosh's elder son, Biswajit, claimed that this was a planned attempt to murder his father, and alleged that Shahjahan pulled strings sitting in jail to carry out the crime.

Ghosh, accompanied by his son, was headed for the Basirhat sub-divisional court to appear in connection with one of the many cases that Shahjahan had filed against him.

Local eyewitnesses claimed that the truck, moving in the opposite direction of the car, rammed into the private vehicle at breakneck speed, crushed it and dragged it along until it fell into the adjacent water body.

Till reports last received, official police complaints by the victims' family members were yet to be lodged.