Garbeta — Mamata brings guns, bones as proof to show PM

NEW DELHI, JAN 15: Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee landed in the Capital with a bag full of bones, bloodstai...

NEW DELHI, JAN 15: Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee landed in the Capital with a bag full of bones, bloodstained clothes, cartridges and other arms and ammunition to show as proof of massacre of her party workers in Midnapore earlier this month.

Demanding a CBI inquiry into the incident at Chhoto Angaria village, she has sought a meeting with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani tomorrow. As many as 80 of her party members are missing. Her demand for imposition of President’s Rule in West Bengal was also renewed with fresh vigour. This time, her efforts were also being supported by the NDA.

MP Vijay Goel — who had earlier led a NDA fact-finding team to the state — today met National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) members, including itsChairman, Justice J.S. Verma. “I gave him (Justice Verma) a four-page petition and requested him to send a team to Midnapore for independent investigations. The CID inquiry into the incident, ordered by the state government, would not be free and fair or would be hushed. The entire state machinery had been politicised. I also gave him the the NDA fact finding report and the evidence that we had collected,” Goel told The Indian Express.

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Though Mamata refused to make any comments, reserving them till after her meeting with the Prime Minister, a Trinamool member said that her focus was on President’s Rule in West Bengal since the “law and order” in the state had collapsed. Goel said that the government was in fact, sponsoring acts of terrorism and that the NHRC delegation should personally go and see the situation on the ground.

“You can imagine for yourself. The area where the massacre took place had not even been cordoned off. Anybody can just go and pick up the evidence strewn around all over the place. What kind of investigations are the state police doing,” Goel questioned.

Trinamool chief whip Sudp Bandopadhyaya said that in the present circumstances it was not possible to hold the coming Assembly eletions in a “peaceful, free and fair manner.”