Relief for Salim's son; Calcutta HC stays his arrest till May 25

Kolkata: In a major relief to CPI(M) Lok Sabha MP Mohammed Salim’s son Russel Aziz, the Calcutta high court has ordered the CID not to arrest him till May 25 as the state detective agency is preparing to question the senior parliamentarian in the case of fake post by his son on a social networking site.

Russel, who has faced two rounds of questionning already, has been asked to appear at the CID headquarters: Bhawani Bhavan on Thursday again. Before appearing at the CID on May 21 for the first time, he had moved the high court for anticipatory bail, which came up for hearing before a division bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Rajarshi Bharadwaj.

Russel had allegedly shared a post on a social networking site claiming the death of a poll official during the Panchayat Elections at Raiganj in North Dinajpur on May 14. However, he later deleted it. But his post was shared by many others by then.

The CID lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police station of the Bidhannagar City Police.

During the hearing into Russel’s anticipatory bail plea before the division bench Arun Maity, a lawyer appearing for the CID, complained to the two judges that Russel was not cooperating with the state detective agency in its probe.

He reasoned that the CID, if required, will summon and question Mr Salim since the SIM, which was used by his son in the cellphone in making the alleged post online, was bought in his name. The division bench then directed the CID to not to arrest Russel till May 25 while asking it to continue its probe including summoning and grilling Russel.

After the first round of questionning Russel had claimed, “I will cooperate with the investigation process. I went to the CID’s cyber crime wing. So it appears they are treating it as cyber crime. I have not received any communication for questionning again. I will cooperate if called again. There is nothing hide. Truth will win.”