Sudhir Bhattacharya: Sentence reserved

Sudhir Bhattacharya, former CPM chairman of Dum Dum Municipality, has been held guilty of masterminding the murder of his party colleague and successor in the civic body, Sailen Das.

Also convicted are S.P. Kamath, a Class IV employee of the municipality, and five others. Four have been acquitted.

The additional district and sessions judge of Barasat, Sushil Chandra Barui, who pronounced the verdict on Monday, reserved the sentence till Tuesday.

Das, a doctor and Rabindrasangeet exponent, was killed on August 13, 2001. Three motorcycle-borne men approached him the moment he stepped out of home on his way to the municipality and fired at him.

“The district police and the CID started a probe into the murder. Eleven people were arrested,” said Praveen Kumar, superintendent of police (North 24-Parganas).

The murder sent ripples through the political and cultural circles, as Das was not known to have any enemies, despite his crusade against the illegal building business rampant in the municipal area.

The sleuths came across major leads after recovering the motorcycle used by the assailants and learning about an illegal deal from the Das family.

“Tracing the clue, we rounded up Kamath, who spilled the beans about Bhattacharya’s involvement in the murder,” said an officer.

Bhattacharya, during his tenure as civic chairman, had sanctioned an illegal plan to build a four-storeyed apartment block based on forged documents. Das got a whiff of the deal and stalled the construction. He was also collecting documents to nail Bhattacharya in the party.

“Bhattacharya, who had earned lakhs from the deal, came to know about Das’s move and hatched a plan with Kamath to eliminate him. Kamath was paid Rs 10,000 for the job,” the officer added.

Apart from Bhattacharya and Kamath, those convicted are Ibrahim Ali, Sheikh Ismail, Debashish Ghatak and Biswajit Burman. Those acquitted are Mrityunjoy Ghosh, Tapas Bhattacharya, Dilip Sil and Sabir Hossein. Another accused, Bachchan Singh, turned approver in the case.