Ghosh: Hands tied?

Calcutta, Feb. 8: Three days after the firing, the CPM’s Left Front partners have together demanded a judicial probe.

The Forward Bloc, RSP and the CPI today wanted punishment for the officers responsible for the firing that killed five Bloc supporters and withdrawal of cases against Bloc cadres in connection with Tuesday’s violence in Dinhata.

Bloc state secretary Ashok Ghosh had not asked for any probe into the firing earlier. “We are not seeking a probe as we know what happened there and what the outcome of such inquiries are,” he had said.

The decision of the “mini-front” apparently came under pressure from the Bloc’s Cooch Behar unit. However, Bloc leaders said they took time to check with the district leadership whether there were any “excesses from our side”.

Although the mini-front meeting at the Bloc headquarters was aimed at mounting pressure on the CPM and the government, its leaders indicated their compulsion to carry on with the CPM. “We urge Left Front chairman Biman Bose to call an immediate meeting of the front to resolve the bitterness among partners,” RSP state secretary Debabrata Bandopadhyay said.

The CPI’s Nandagopal Bhattacharya joined Ghosh in stressing the partners would “strive to strengthen Left unity”.

The Bloc will organise silent processions on February 12 and resume its campaign for the panchayat polls, which it is contesting on its own. The RSP will show its “solidarity” with the Bloc over the firing by holding demonstrations against “increasing police atrocities” the next day.

The CPI has not announced any protest plans.

The RSP and the CPI are with the CPM in the polls.

The CPM and the government were not happy with the first death of front supporters in police firing in 30 years of Left rule but confident that the Bloc could not afford to let it snowball into a crisis.

Bose ruled out a front meeting on the issue. Ghosh said the chief minister didn’t speak to him after his return from Delhi.

Reacting to the allies’ demands, CPM spokesman Shyamal Chakraborty said: “They didn’t demand the probe earlier. Now it’s for the government to decide.’’

Chakraborty wondered if it was legally possible to withdraw the murder charge against Bloc leaders for the death of a National Volunteers Force jawan in Dinhata.