Suvendu Exposes July 21 Killings’ Political Gains of Didi, TMC

Kolkata: A day before two Trinamul Congress factions’ plans to observe their party's annual signature event, Shahid Dibos (Martyr's Day), separately in the city to commemorate 13 Youth Congress workers' killings in police firing on July 21 in 1993 during the Communist regime, West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari exposed their past to corner them with a judicial inquiry commission's explosive report on the brutality that his predecessor Mamata Banerjee never disclosed during her 15-year-rule.

Mr Adhikari tabled the confidential report of retired judge Sushanta Chatterjee-led probe panel, set up by Ms Banerjee after becoming the CM in 2011, at the Assembly on Monday afternoon within hours of informing the House about his decision to make it public. He then trained guns on the Trinamul Congress supremo and her loyalists for exploiting the three-decade-old massacre during their Mahakaran Abhijan (March to Writers' Building) for their “political gains”.

Reading out some portions of the report, Mr Adhikari said, “The July 21 incident was exploited for political gains by many people who later built their political and personal empire on it. They became CM, ministers, MLAs and MPs flying in chartered flights and traveling abroad for treatment. The former CM always claimed herself as the prime witness to the police firing. But she was never summoned to depose her statement. Hence she didn't testify.”

Referring to the evidence before the commission, he pointed out that former leader of the opposition Pankaj Banerjee, who was once a close aide of Ms Banerjee, did not depose his statement despite being summoned as a witness because he held the then state home secretary Manish Gupta purely responsible for ordering the police firing and called the judicial probe a cover-up to save some bureaucrats like Mr Gupta who later became the power minister in the first TMC government.

Mr Adhikari also revealed the previous government’s grant of a meagre amount of financial compensation to the kin of the deceased and injured. “Though the commission recommended a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the kin of the deceased and Rs 5 lakh to the injured, families of those killed got only Rs 2 lakhs while the injured got Rs 15,000. Shameful! Our government will provide them compensation from the CM relief fund if they want it. If they still want to file a fresh FIR against the firing, our government will allow that also,” he stated.