Dinhata firing report missing from CMO

On inquiry by The Indian Express,a senior Home Department official said: “We cannot say the file is missing. So we wrote the report is unavailable.’’

Minister for Law and Justice Moloy Ghatak pointed the needle of suspicion at former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to whom the report was submitted.

“After a commission of inquiry finishes its job,it submits its report in a sealed envelope to the chief minister. As per law,the report along with an action-taken-report on it should be submitted before the Assembly within six month. Buddhadebbabu was in power for eight months after the report was submitted but it was never placed before the House. Now the report cannot be traced. We will launch a probe on what the previous government had done to it,’’ Ghatak told The Indian Express.

The Left Front government had spent around Rs 1 crore on the commission,which probed the incident for three years.

On February 5,2008 the police fired on a rally of Forward Bloc supporters that became unruly at Dinhata,resulting in the death of five supporters of the party and one NVF member,who was part of the security set-up.

Forward Bloc,a senior partner of the Left Front,called for a Bangla bandh the next day and demanded a judicial inquiry. The state government set up a one-man commission of retired High Court judge Narayan Chandra Sil,who submitted the probe report on August 19,2010. But senior leaders of the Forward Bloc,sensing that the publication of the report could go against their leaders in Coochbehar,allegedly put pressure on Bhattacharjee not to release it. Bhattacharjee sat over it for the remaining period of his term. Before she same to power,Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had alleged that important government files were missing from Writers’ Buildings.