By ordering an inquiry into allegations of police torture by alleged Naxalite conduit professor Kaushik Ganguly, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, instead of deflecting unwanted attention, is actually attracting loads of it and then some flak.West Bengal Human Rights Commission chairman, Justice Mukul Gopal Mukherjee, today questioned the state government’s decision to set up a ‘‘parallel’ inquiry. While partners of the Left Front made several audible noises about ‘‘police high-handedness’’ and ‘‘improper police procedures’’.Bhattacharya had, on Monday, announced that a state Home Department official would probe Ganguly’s allegations of torture during interrogation as well as the suicide of Abhijit Sinha. The Central Excise Department official, who was also questioned by the police for his alleged Naxalite links, killed himself on Sunday.‘‘What will the Government do if the findings of the two probes differ? These simultaneous, uncoordinated reports may result in contradictory reports. If so, the state government knows best what to do,’’ Justice Mukherjee told The Indian Express.He explained that after complaints from the families of Ganguly, 26-year-old Tinku Ghosh and Parasar Bhattacharya, who are accused of having links with the People’s War Group in Midnapore, he decided to initiate an investigation by the human rights commission’s senior officers. ‘‘But the government’s probe won’t discourage us,’’ he said.While Justice Mukherjee said the circumstances leading to Sinha’s suicide were still being investigated, Sinha’s family is determined to pursue the matter. His father-in-law Moloy Sinha, incidentally, is an officer in the Criminal Investigation Department. Pitching in are partners in the Left Front like the RSP, Forward Bloc and CPI. Senior RSP leader Kshiti Goswami said: ‘‘We cannot tolerate this police high-handedness. We’ll bring it up at the LF meeting.’’ The CPI too has conveyed its reservations. ‘‘The police didn’t even fulfil the minimum requirement of producing proper documents before taking the suspects into custody,’’ the party’s national executive member and minister, Nandalal Bhattacharya, said. And the All India Forward Bloc has told the chief minister that ‘‘we cannot support arbitrary police highhandedness.’’
