Chatterjee

April 11: SUCI leader Bidhan Chatterjee’s body had to be dug out of a sandpit when his nephew and niece went to fetch it today because Puri doesn’t have a morgue.

“As the body had not been identified by a kin, Puri police had put it in the pit at the local cremation ground for better preservation,” said P.K. Patnaik, the inspector in charge of Sea Beach police station.

Two constables had been deployed at the cremation ground to guard the body of the 59-year-old leader who hanged himself in a hotel room after accusing party state secretary Pravas Ghosh of corruption.

A senior Orissa police officer said burying unidentified bodies in pits was a “usual practice” in the absence of morgues.

Chatterjee’s niece Indrani and nephew Sayak Chanda identified the body today.

A police team from Behala is bringing it back in an ambulance.

South 24-Parganas police chief Praveen Kumar said the body would be handed over to Chatterjee’s widow Bulbul tomorrow. “She had lodged the missing complaint by speed post. It reached us last night,” the officer said.

Chatterjee’s sisters had lodged a separate diary.

Bulbul told the police today the party would speak for her.

Kumar said: “We will talk to her again and ask her why she sent her complaint by post when the police station is barely 3km from her house.”

Bulbul went to the SUCI office on Lenin Sarani tonight. Sources said she had spoken to her husband on the phone at 10.15pm on Tuesday.

“It’s difficult to accept that he is dead,” she was quoted as saying tonight.

Handwriting experts are being consulted to ascertain whether Chatterjee wrote the “suicide note”.

A resident of SN Roy Road in Behala, he had checked into Suman Guest House on Tuesday under a fictitious name and address. Policemen who broke into his room and saw him hanging found a phone. It belonged to Indrani.

Ghosh, who was accused of abetting the suicide, said: “There is no evidence to implicate anyone.”

A criminal lawyer in Calcutta said it would be difficult to establish the complicity of Ghosh and others whom Chatterjee has held responsible for the suicide. “In the eyes of law, the charges brought by Chatterjee are not enough to lead someone to suicide.”