Keeping her pre-election pledge to reopen old cases, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced a judicial commission to probe the barbaric 1970 Sainbari killings in Burdwan district.
"A judicial commission will be instituted to probe the Sainbari massacre in Burdwan in 1970," Banerjee told reporters at Writers' Buildings.
The Sainbari murders occurred in March 1970 in which a youth was hacked to death and his blood smeared on the face of his mother because the family had refused to change political affiliation from the Congress to Communist Party of India (Marxist). Some other members of the family were also killed.
"The state government had earlier formed an inquiry commission into the massacre, which made some recommendations, but were not implemented by the Left Front government," Banerjee said.
The Front government did not act against those whom the commission had recommended for penal action, she said. The state government decided at its first cabinet meeting to reopen the case in which a senior minister of the former government was allegedly involved. Banerjee had said earlier on May 20 that evidence still existed and the family members of the victims were still alive.
The chief minister said that the state government was also reviewing the case relating to the Cossipore massacre 41 years ago before ordering a probe. An unspecified number of young men were butchered at Cossipore at the height of the Naxalite movement in Kolkata.
The chief minister also said that an inquiry would be launched into the death of Kallol Sur, a Block Development Officer posted at Daspur in West Midnapore district in 2008.
The body of the 30-year-old BDO who blew the whistle on alleged corruption by the CPM-led panchayat in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was found hanging in his house. "His father has said he did not commit suicide," Banerjee said.
