Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee at the residence of singer Manna De in Bangalore on Thursday. (PTI)

Calcutta, April 4: Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee iterated that SFI leader Sudipto Gupta’s death was an “accident” and termed it a “small matter, petty matter” on a day governor M.K. Narayanan showed the maturity of reserving his comment on the incident till the investigation was over.

“We said unfortunate incident, but that is an accident. This is not police atrocity,” Mamata told reporters at Bangalore airport when she was asked to comment on how the death of the young SFI leader has drawn flak from students, from Bangalore to Bengal.

Mamata has gone to Bangalore for a day to confer veteran singer Manna De with a state government award for his contribution to the world of music.

The controversy over the death of Sudipto — SFI leaders have alleged that he died because of police excesses — tailed her till Bangalore, where reporters asked her why the state government was not announcing a judicial probe into the custodial death of the young man.

“Already the post-mortem report is there. It’s a small matter, petty matter,” Mamata said.

The Bengal chief minister’s comments in Bangalore were in continuation to what she had asserted yesterday when she had described the death as an accident and said that he died “after hitting a lamp-post” even before the post-mortem report was ready.

In Calcutta, the police today said Sudipto died after his head had collided with a “blunt stationary object”.

“The post-mortem report said the cause of death was his head injury and subsequent fall on a rough surface. The injuries are ante-mortem in nature. His head was hit by a blunt stationary object,” said Jawed Shamim, special additional commissioner (headquarters, Calcutta police).

Shamim quoted the post-mortem report, saying no injuries caused by “lathi, rod or glass” were found on Sudipto’s body.

The young SFI leader’s death on Tuesday, apparently after he fell from a bus and hit a lamp-post, had triggered controversy amid conflicting statements.

The police had termed it as an “accident” where the victim, standing on the foot-board of the bus lost balance before hitting the lamp-post, while SFI supporters present at the spot had alleged that Sudipto was beaten up before he lost grip and fell out of the bus. Two days after the incident, the city police clarified the “exact cause of death”, though they refused to rule out the other probabilities as well.

“The investigation has just begun. We have shared a small part of the post-mortem report that ascertains the cause of death. There was a subsequent complaint by the SFI supporters. We are not ruling out anything,” Shamim said.

Sources in SSKM hospital in Calcutta, where the post-mortem was conducted yesterday, told The Telegraph that the autopsy revealed that the base of the skull had come undone from the joint.

“This normally occurs when the head slams with great force against a hard, blunt object. A blow from a lathi does not cause the base of the skull to come undone from the joint,” said a senior doctor.

A team of forensic experts visited the place of occurrence, a few metres off the Presidency correctional home, where Sudipto’s head had apparently slammed on to a lamp-post.

The officials collected samples, including blood and human hair, from the lamp-post in question.

“The organic samples we found on the lamp-post were at a height of 7.5 feet from the ground. This is the approximate level where a person of Sudipto’s height might reach when he stands on a raised platform like a bus. We will corroborate our findings with the height of the footboard,” said a member of the probing team. Forensic experts not attached with the probe said if a person fell from a running bus and then struck a lamp-post, chances were that the height at which he collided with the post would be lower than when he was hit while standing on a bus.

Officer Shamim had told the news conference this afternoon that the post-mortem report had reached them only today and the investigations into the death were at a preliminary stage.

Governor M.K. Narayanan, a former intelligence officer, today almost echoed Shamim when he was asked about Sudipto’s death on the sidelines of an art exhibition in Calcutta.

“I don’t want to make any comments. Let the investigation be over, don’t keep fuelling unnecessary speculations, please,” Narayanan said.