Buddha justifies ’93 firing on Youth Cong workers

Mamata Banerjee, who was Youth Congress president then, had set up the commission headed by Justice Sushanta Chatterjee (retd), a former chief justice of the Orissa High Court, to probe the incident soon after she came to power in 2011.

“There are two types of political agitations. One is positive and one is negative. As there is a difference between the attack of the Nazis on Danric of Poland in 1939 and the attack of the Red Army on Berlin in 1945. The rally on that day was nothing but an exercise in entering forcibly and capturing Writers’ Building by a group of people and so the police firing was quite justified,’’ Bhattacharjee said.

Bhattacharjee, also a CPM Politburo member, said there was large-scale violence during the agitation and many policeman were injured. “All movements are not democratic movements and all police firings cannot be condemned in one word.”

The Left leader said he had held discussions with Congress leaders who, too, did not agree with the way the rally was conducted.

Asked by Justice Chatterjee as to why no judicial inquiry was ordered by the then Left government, he said he felt it was not necessary. “From the police report I thought no judicial inquiry was needed and I still stick to the stand,” Bhattacharjee, the then information and culture minister, said. He, however, conceded those killed in the firing could have been innocent pedestrians.

When informed that a minister in the present government (Madan Mitra, minister for transport) while deposing before the single-member panel earlier, had said that Bhattacharjee was the de facto home minister at that time, the Marxist leader said no importance should be given to the comments of a “moron, a fool”.