Author: TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 26, 2011
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Ananda-Margis-set-probe-deadline-for-CM/articleshow/9740466.cms
Activists of Ananda Marg on Thursday stepped
up their demand for a judicial inquiry into the April 30, 1982, murder of
a nun and 16 monks of the sect at Bijon Setu. Demanding an inquiry by a sitting
Supreme Court judge, they gave the state government 15 days to come to a decision.
Otherwise, they would take to the streets on September 12 in a protest meeting.
In a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee
- their third since the Trinamool government came to power - they've sought
an appointment with her to press their demands.
The government has already set up six inquiry
committees - from the unnatural death of newly elected CPM MLA Mostafa Bin
Quasem on May 29 this year to Saibari massacre on March 17, 1970. However,
the government has till now maintained a studied silence on this 1982 massacre
in broad daylight right in Kolkata. Acharya Kalyaneshvarananda Avadhuta alleged
that a few CPM leaders involved in the case have now switched allegiance to
Trinamool Congress.
"Now it is more than three months that
the government is in power but nothing has been done in this case in spite
of the assurances given by Trinamool Congress leaders," the Acharya said.
"We have been with Trinamool in the Nandigram agitation now we want them
to be with us. This was an inhuman incident in which innocent monks were dragged
from taxis, chopped and brunt alive. When inquiry commissions could be constituted
for other cases, why not this?" he added.
The Ananda Marga Pracaraka Samgha public
relations secretary Acahrya Kalaneshvarananda Avadhuta also cited the instance
of Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik order an inquiry into the January
22, 1999, Graham Staines murder by a sitting Supreme Court judge as an instance
when the state government could get the Centre to declare a similar inquiry
commission. The Acharya squarely blamed the then Jyoti Basu government for
not doing anything, "Why would they? The case indicted several top CPM
leaders. A CPM leader named in the FIR has now even switched parties to Trinamool.
They (read the CPM government) had deliberate reasons to suppress the investigations.
As a result even the police investigations ended with a few uninvolved people
being arrested while the masterminds at still at large. We, therefore, hoped
that the new government would show the conviction and courage to find the
truth," he said. He further added, "The then Left front government
did set up an inquiry commission. But nothing is known of it."
