ISI link walks free, points to jail ‘mistake’ - Police take army contractual driver into custody after he holds news conference

June 28: A contractual driver for the army who was arrested last month for suspected ISI links today held a news conference in Siliguri where he alleged that he was released “by mistake” from the Darjeeling correctional home. The matter came to light this afternoon when 54-year-old Magan Bahadur Singh held a news conference in the Siliguri Journalists’ Club to highlight that the jail had set him free yesterday, and he was not an absconding accused person. He was soon taken into custody. If his allegation is true, it is unclear how jail authorities allowed him to walk free. The Darjeeling district magistrate has ordered a probe. At the Siliguri Journalists’ Club this afternoon, Singh, among four persons arrested in Sukna for suspected ISI links, said he wanted to surrender. “I was accused in a murder case in Sukna (around 10km from Siliguri) back on March 16, 2008. I was arrested and produced in the Kurseong court, where the case is still pending. I was, however, granted bail after I had spent 66 days in the correctional home,” Singh said today. “Again on May 18 this year, I was arrested on the charge of having links with the ISI. Police took me into custody and subsequently, I was sent to the Darjeeling correctional home,” Singh said. Yesterday, according to him, he was sent to the Kurseong court where trial for the earlier murder case was being held. “If a person gets bail in a case, he is supposed to appear during the trial of the case on his own. But as my client was in custody in the correctional home for another case, it was the duty of the home authorities to present him before the court during the murder case trial,” Bhaskar Das, the lawyer representing Singh, said. After the trial, according to Singh, he was taken back to the Darjeeling correctional home. “However, around 6.30pm, the correctional home jailor came to me and told me that they would release me as my release order had come. I was asked to pack my clothes, the officers prepared necessary documents and took my thumb print and finally told me to walk out,” said Singh, who is a resident of Choto Adalpur close to Sukna. Singh said he took a cab and reached home late at night. “It took me some time to understand the error committed by the correctional home authorities. I spoke to my lawyer and realised the mistake made by the correctional home authorities,” the driver said. “I could not understand why the correctional home authorities released me. I thought of narrating the tale to media persons and surrender before police.” Policemen who learnt about the news conference reached the club minutes after Singh finished speaking and took him into custody. A senior lawyer in Kurseong, where Singh was produced yesterday, said the correctional home authorities may have been negligent on the issue. “The court has to issue a production warrant to inform the correctional home authorities that he needs to be produced again on the next date. The next date had been fixed for July 24, 2013. In the production warrant the court always writes that if the accused has no other pending cases he may be released since he has already been given bail in this particular murder case. The Darjeeling correctional home authorities might have forgotten that Singh was also an accused in an ISI related case and had not yet obtained bail in that case,” said the lawyer. Saumitra Mohan, the district magistrate of Darjeeling, said: “I have directed Kaushik Nag, Darjeeling Sadar SDO, to conduct an inquiry. I cannot comment until the facts are placed before me.” District administration sources said an initial inquiry had revealed that D.Chaudhury, the assistant controller of the correctional home, had released Singh because of “some mistake”, but they did not reveal what the mistake was.