Kolkata: In November 2011, six months into Mamata Banerjee's first term as chief minister of West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government released a document titled 'Promises Fulfilled', listing the pre-election promises that were implemented.

The list included the constitution of a commission of inquiry, headed by a retired judge, to probe the infamous Cossipore Baranagar massacre of August 12-13, 1971, in which around 150 Naxalite activists and sympathisers were allegedly killed by hoodlums aligned with the Congress, in connivance with the police and a section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] supporters.

Banerjee's promise apparently ended with the constitution of the commission, as the report has not been revealed despite the government receiving it in 2017.

The state government’s budget documents reveal that the government spent Rs 2.58 crore on this commission, headed by retired justice D.P. Sengupta.

Two other reports on incidents where members of the CPI(M) are the prime accused are lying with the state government – the killing of 15 monks and two nuns on Bijon Setu in south Kolkata in 1982 and the killing of the Sain brothers in Burdwan district in 1970.

Political analysts see in the government’s approach the TMC chief’s changed priorities over the past decade. The CPI(M) and the Congress have been almost relegated to the fringes, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged as the TMC’s principal challenger.

The massacre

The alleged massacre at Cossipore and Baranagar neighbourhoods in north Kolkata took place in 1971, when Bengal was under the President’s Rule, with Union minister and Congress stalwart Siddhartha Shankhar Ray, who would be Bengal’s next chief minister (1972-77), at the helm of affairs.

The said ‘operation’ started on the night of August 12 and continued throughout August 13.

According to Amit Bhattacharya, a former professor of history at Jadavpur University and author of the book Spring Thunder and Kolkata: An Epic Story of Courage and Sacrifice (1965-72), the police formed ‘resistance groups’ comprising local Congress-backed ruffians in different localities to take on the Naxalites after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told the Rajya Sabha that the armed rebels “would be fought to the finish”.

“The so-called resistance groups worked in coordination with the police and paramilitary forces. During the operation at Cossipore-Baranagar, a section of CPI(M) workers also helped them in identifying the Naxalite activists and sympathisers by marking their houses with signs. The police and the Congressmen cordoned off the entire locality, entered the houses, dragged the suspects out and killed them in full view of their family and the public. A report in the Frontier said bodies were found with heads cut off, limbs lost, eyes gouged out, and entrails ripped off. An estimated 150-200 youngsters were killed within 48 hours,” Bhattacharya said.

Also Read: In Bengal Politics, Violence Begets Violence. But Does it Always Deliver the Goods?

Human rights activist Sujato Bhadra said that the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), the state’s oldest and largest human rights organisation, had conducted a fact-finding exercise. Its report was published in 1974.

“The report put the death toll at about 150 and blamed a coordinated operation by the security forces and the Congress with the tacit support of a section of the CPI(M). A copy of that report had been submitted to the Sengupta commission on behalf of APDR,” said Bhadra.

Following the unprecedented display of brutality, Congress leader Bijoy Singh Nahar, who had served as the deputy chief minister in the last government, had blamed the CPI(M). The latter's Jyoti Basu, in turn, blamed the Congress. Ray had said in a 1972 interview to Anandabazar Patrika, “The people of West Bengal do not want to know who the guilty are.”

Even though the CPI(M) carried out a high-voltage campaign during 1971-77 seeking to punish the perpetrators, different Naxalite groups repeatedly blamed the party for being hand in glove with the Congress in this operation.

Bhadra recalled that the CPI(M)-led Left Front government, soon after coming to power in 1977, had instituted the Justice Haratosh Chakraborty commission to look into the allegations of human rights violations by the police and state authorities during the 1970s.

“The Cossipore-Baranagar incident fell within the purview of the Chakraborty commission, which had also submitted an interim report. But the report was challenged by police officers in court and the state government led by Jyoti Basu did not pursue the matter,” he said.

The Bijon Setu incident took place on April 30, 1982. Fifteen monks and two nuns of the Ananda Marg religious sect were lynched and burnt alive on Bijon Setu, a bridge in south Kolkata, allegedly by a mob led by some CPI(M) leaders.

In the Sain family incident, Congress supporters Maloy Sain and Pranab Sain and their acquaintance Jiten Roy were killed by a mob of alleged CPI(M) supporters on March 17, 1970, when the party had enforced a bandh in the locality. The report of a judicial commission constituted by the Congress government (1972-77) found no favour with the CPI(M)-led Left regime that ruled Bengal between 1977 and 2011.

The Commissions

Mamata Banerjee was the Union railway minister when she announced, in 2010, that a judicial inquiry would be ordered into these incidents should her party come to power in 2011. After assuming the chief minister's office, she promptly constituted a commission on the Cossipore-Baranagar incident headed by retired Justice A.K. Bishi. However, the next year, the commission was reconstituted with Justice Sengupta heading it. The commission started its work in 2014.

According to a government official who was involved in the functioning of the Sengupta commission, it suffered a number of roadblocks, including with people’s lukewarm response in deposing before the commission and submission of documents/evidence.

“The commission found almost no government records and conducted its probe based on versions of witnesses and different non-government publications,” the officer said.

The report was submitted in September 2017.

The commission headed by retired Justice Amitava Lala to inquire into the Bijon Setu killings submitted its report in September 2019.

The Arunabha Basu commission that probed the Sain family killings submitted its report in 2018. The CPI(M) has always alleged that the Congress tried to malign the party by 'falsely implicating' its workers in the incident.

At a time the CPI(M) and the Congress are walking hand in hand in West Bengal to fight the TMC and the BJP, the report on the Sain Bari killings could have caused some friction. But that, perhaps, is not on the state government’s agenda.

The government’s purpose

Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty, a professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, said that Mamata Banerjee’s purpose was fulfilled with the constitution of the commissions and their reports do not bother her.

“In 2010, she was trying to get the entire ultra-Left camp behind her to uproot the Left Front government. She announced the Cossipore Baranagar commission initially to appease the Naxal sympathisers in her support base, and later, after coming to power, wanted to use it to keep the Congress and CPI(M) under pressure. Now, she has no need for either. The report has no meaning for her anymore,” Chakraborty said.

“She similarly used the Sain Bari and Bijon Setu issues to put the CPI(M) under pressure,” he added.

The BJP Bengal unit's president Dilip Ghosh felt that Mamata Banerjee’s priorities had changed. “She wanted to use these commissions to threaten the CPI(M) and the Congress, but now she needs the CPI(M) and the Congress to fight us. She will not disturb the CPI(M) and the Congress under the present scenario and the reports will never be made public,” Ghosh said.

The CPI(M) and the Congress, however, ruled out any softening of Mamata Banerjee’s approach towards them.

According to Pradip Bhattacharya, a Rajya Sabha MP of the Congress, Banerjee had no way to act on the basis of these reports because she made a compromise on her core issue – police firing on a rally led by her on July 21, 1993, that claimed the lives of 13 Youth Congress workers.

The judicial commission on this incident submitted its report in 2017 but the government has not tabled it in the assembly yet.

“The IAS officer (Manish Gupta, then home secretary) who ordered the police to open fire on the rally led by Mamata Banerjee went on to become a senior TMC minister and later Rajya Sabha MP. By honouring Gupta, she compromised on that core issue of hers. She can hardly take any step on the basis of the reports of the other commissions,” Bhattacharya said.

“She has no face to table the reports on Cossipore Baranagar, Sain Bari, Bijon Setu and the July 21 incidents because the reports are certain to expose her false propaganda,” said CPI(M) MLA Tanmoy Bhattacharya.

No TMC leaders agreed to comment on the issue because the commissions were set up by the chief minister herself.

Snigdhendu Bhattacharya is a Kolkata-based journalist and author.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.