Midnapore, April 8: The prime witness in the 2001 Chhoto Angaria “massacre” case today told a Midnapore court that he had given a false account during a 2008 hearing because CPM leaders had threatened to kill his son.

“Huzoor, on May 19, 2008, I was forced to give false evidence (on the massacre) as (CPM leaders) Dibakar Bhunia and Prashanta Pal told me that my son would be kidnapped and murdered,” Trinamul worker Bakhtar Mondal told the additional chief sessions judge when the case came up for hearing after four years.

Bakhtar today named a number of CPM leaders in the court, including Tapan Ghosh and Sukur Ali, both of whom are West Midnapore district committee members. He said the two were directly involved in the massacre.

CPM district secretary Dipak Sarkar and former minister Sushanta Ghosh were also named by Bakhtar during today’s hearing.

According to the Chhoto Angaria case diary, CPM cadres had on the night of January 4, 2001, torched and fired at Bakhtar’s house at Chhoto Angaria village in West Midnapore’s Garbeta.

Trinamul had alleged that 11 of its workers were killed and their bodies dumped outside the village. No bodies have been found yet.

The CBI had taken up the probe within a couple of months of the massacre and had charged 13 people. In 2009, they were acquitted because of lack of evidence. Of the remaining five who were on the run, CPM cadre Dil Mohammad was arrested in May 2011.

The West Midnapore CPM rubbished the allegations, saying the names of its leaders Sarkar and Ghosh had never cropped up in the 2001 case.