West Bengal: Crime & politics

Sushanta Ghosh is the first minister of West Bengal who has been arrested for his involvement in a gruesome killing of seven activists of Trinamool Congress. The incident happened in 2002 when the ill-fated TMC activists were returning home after a party meeting in a newly opened party office at Keshpur. When chased by CPI goons, they took shelter in a party office at Khetua.

According to an eye-witness, Arup Ghosh, “About 40 to 50 masked armed men  attacked us. Those ill-fated persons were dragged out of TMC supporter Gobinda Majhi’s house where they had taken shelter to save their lives, severely beaten up and then killed.” Arup could save him as he fell into a ditch. 

Only two dead bodies were returned to their families, and the rest five — Ajay Acharya, Swapan Singha alias Raju, Nabakumar Laha, Delwar Seikh and Shukur Ali remained “untraced” according to the police. But discovery of skeletons of five persons and identification of one skeleton by Shyamal Acharya, son of Ajay Acharya, as his father’s remains and the subsequent filing of a fresh FIR re-opened the case. Reportedly, Shyamal had filed an FIR just after the killings, but that was replaced by another FIR, filed by Shyamal’s sister. Sushanta Ghosh was not named in that FIR and the police could not find any proof to indict anybody. So the case was dismissed.

But, Sushanta is not alone in this mess. CPM’s former MP Anil Basu is reportedly involved in Sainbari Masscre of 1970. His real name is Manik Roy, which he changed after being indicted. Another indicted person in that case is Khokan Sen who is now known as Nirupam Sen, a member of the politburo. Before the assembly election, the CJM of Birbhum convicted 44 CPM cadres in Suchpur massacre case, including CPI(M) district leaders Nitya Narayan Chatterjee and Ramprasad Ghosh. And there are several others too.

“There are several such cases for which the Front is out of power today,” admitted Dibakar Guha, state secretariat member of the Forward Bloc.