The 23-year-old man accused of raping and murdering a Class 11 student in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district was shot dead in a police encounter in the early hours of Tuesday, police sources said, in the second such killing of a rape-murder accused in the state in the past four months. The death has brought fresh attention to the use of police encounters in cases of crimes against women, and to the circumstances in which accused persons die while in custody.
The accused, Prahlad Das, was taken to the crime scene in Gaighata, in the Bongaon region, late on Monday night to reconstruct the sequence of events. According to police sources, the reconstruction had been completed and the team was returning when Das allegedly snatched a service revolver from a police officer, fired at the police personnel and attempted to escape by jumping into a nearby pond. Police officers present at the spot opened fire in self-defence, and Das was hit.
He was rushed to the Bongaon Superspeciality Hospital, where doctors declared him dead. His body has been sent for post-mortem examination.
Accounts of the exact timing and sequence differ slightly between reports. Some reports place the incident at around 11.50 pm on Monday, when Das was being taken to the spot, while others describe the shooting as taking place between 3 am and 3.30 am on Tuesday during the reconstruction itself. What the accounts agree on is the core sequence: a weapon was snatched, shots were fired at the police team, and the police fired back.
Two police personnel were also reported injured in the incident, and one officer is said to have jumped into the pond or a nearby canal to save himself during the exchange of fire. The family members of the accused arrived at the hospital and expressed discontent over the incident, and police personnel were deployed on the hospital premises to prevent further trouble.
The encounter came just two days after the body of the 17-year-old victim was found behind a neighbour's house in Gaighata, near the India-Bangladesh border, on Sunday morning. The girl, a Class 11 student who lived with her maternal grandparents, had gone missing on Saturday night. She had attended a musical programme near a local market and had also visited a friend's house for Lakshmi Puja.
According to police, she left the programme after receiving a phone call at around 11.30 pm. When she did not return home, her family members and neighbours searched for her through the night. Locals found her body the next morning in the backyard of a relative's house.
The body bore multiple injuries, including marks on the head and face, according to preliminary findings, and her parents alleged that she had been raped and murdered.
Das was arrested on Sunday, the same day the body was found, and was sent to 10 days' police custody. A Special Investigation Team had been formed to investigate the case. Extra force was deployed in the area after locals began protesting against the rape and murder, leading to tension in the neighbourhood.
The killing of the accused has therefore not closed the case so much as shifted its focus, from the investigation of the crime to the circumstances of the encounter itself.
The incident bears a striking resemblance to another encounter in the state earlier this year. In July, an accused in a rape-murder case in Baruipur, in South 24 Parganas, was killed in similar circumstances during a crime scene reconstruction. That parallel has been noted in almost every report of the Gaighata encounter, and it is likely to shape the debate that follows.
Supporters of such police action argue that it delivers swift justice and deters crime, while critics argue that it bypasses the judicial process and raises questions about whether the accused could have been kept alive to face trial.
Political reactions on Tuesday reflected that divide. Dilip Ghosh, a Bengal minister and former state BJP chief, said the encounter would instil fear among criminals. "It happened in South 24 Parganas and now here. Police have to give justice to the victims. Sometimes, police have to do unpleasant tasks," he said.
"Criminals do not fear easily. This is because of years of no law and order in Bengal. But this will instil fear in the hearts of criminals."
The Trinamool Congress, on the other hand, criticised the government over the incident on Monday night and raised concerns about women's safety. In a post on its official social media handle, the party wrote that slogans mean nothing if women and girls continue to live in fear and families are left searching for answers, and asked how many more tragedies would occur before the administration answers for its failures.
The criticism points to a broader issue that extends beyond any single case. West Bengal, like much of India, has struggled with crimes against women and girls, and each high-profile case renews questions about prevention, policing and the safety of girls who travel to local events and festivals. In this case, the victim was a school student who had gone out for an evening programme and never returned.
The fact that her body was found so close to home, in the backyard of a relative's house, has added to the sense of shock in the area.
Encounters of this kind also raise institutional questions that do not disappear with the death of the accused. Police guidelines and Supreme Court directions require that encounter deaths be investigated, including through a magisterial inquiry, and that the circumstances be established independently. The post-mortem examination, the recovery of the weapon, the injuries suffered by police personnel and the statements of those present will all form part of that process.
The fact that two policemen were reportedly injured may support the police account, but it does not settle the matter on its own, and the circumstances surrounding the alleged snatching of the revolver and the subsequent exchange of fire have already raised questions.
For the victim's family, the encounter does not end the search for answers either. The investigation into the rape and murder itself, including the evidence collected during the reconstruction, the findings of the post-mortem on the victim, and the role of any other person who may have been involved, remains relevant. The Special Investigation Team's work will determine whether the case against Das was complete and whether anyone else bears responsibility.
The Gaighata case also sits within a national conversation about how the criminal justice system handles crimes against women. Swift police action is often welcomed by a public frustrated by delays in trials, but the Constitution and the courts require that guilt be established through trial, and that the state not become the judge and executioner.
When an accused person dies in custody, the trial that would have tested the evidence never takes place, and the public is left to rely on the police account of events. That is why encounter deaths, even in cases that provoke widespread anger, tend to attract scrutiny from courts, human rights bodies and the media.
In the coming days, attention will turn to the inquiry into the encounter, the post-mortem findings and the response of the state administration. The protests that followed the discovery of the victim's body have already shown that the local community is watching closely. Whether the encounter is accepted as a legitimate act of self-defence or questioned as an avoidable killing will depend on the evidence that emerges, and on how transparently the investigation is conducted.
For now, Gaighata remains tense, with additional police deployed in the area. A teenage girl is dead, the man accused of killing her is dead, and the questions that both deaths raise about safety, policing and justice in West Bengal remain unanswered.
(Reporting based on The Hindu and The Times of India.)