KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday said the Justice Susanta Chatterjee Commission, formed by the previous Trinamool Congress government to probe the death of 13 Youth Congress demonstrators in police firing in Kolkata in 1993, did not summon former CM Mamata Banerjee, the key eyewitness of the incident, for interrogation.
“Significantly, Mamata Banerjee was not summoned by the commission,” Adhikari said in the Assembly. “It had summoned 44 eyewitnesses, including former CM Buddhadev Bhattacharya and senior police officials, but Mamata Banerjee was not called for to appear before the investigations,” he said.
“With instructions of (then home secretary) Manish Gupta, the police firing had happened. The justification of police firing could not be proved,” he added.
While reading out the commission’s report, Adhikari said the police firing had occurred without any provocation, but who asked Gupta to order the firing was not yet known.
The CM claimed that Mamata did not make the report public because she wanted to save Gupta, who was a power minister in her cabinet. “Mamata never tried to give justice to the people killed in the firing though she has been organising the ‘Martyrs’ Day’ rally for years on July 21. It’s her vote bank politics,” he alleged.
The CM made the commission report public a day before the two TMC groups led by Mamata and rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee will separately observe ‘Martyrs’ Day’ rallies on Tuesday in two places in the city to commemorate the 1993 incident.
Addressing the opposition benches, Adhikary said, “You will observe July 21 as Martyrs’ Day, but your government never made public the report of the commission it had constituted.” The commission submitted its report in 2024.
