Thaindian News

Kolkata, Aug 12 (IANS) West Bengal’s ruling party Friday demanded the arrest of former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, alleging he knew of the mass murders committed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) legislator Sushanta Ghosh in 2002.

“Sushanta Ghosh had indulged in mass murders with full knowledge of the former chief minister,” said chief whip Sovandeb Chattopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress during zero hour.

Sushanta, a minister in the Left Front government for two decades and now a legislator from Garbeta, was sent to police custody Thursday over the recovery of a skeleton from near his residence in West Midnapore district.

He is now in the custody of the Criminal Investigation Department for seven days after his anticipatory bail was cancelled by the chief judicial magistrate’s court of West Midnapore.

Public Health Engineering Minister Subrata Mukherjee expressed his dismay over Sushanta continuing to be a legislator despite being responsible for “killing 200 people”.

But Leader of the Opposition Sujya Kanta Ghosh told reporters that CPI-M leaders were being implicated in false cases.

In June, seven skeletons were recovered near Sushanta’s house. This led to the arrest of two of his aides.

Sushanta himself took anticipatory bail after a villager, Shyamal Acharya, filed a police complaint that one of the skeletons was of his father Ajay Acharya.

It was alleged that on Sep 22, 2002, Ajay and some other members of the Trinamool Congress were attacked by 40 armed people allegedly belonging to the CPI-M.

Sushanta was one of the 40 people named in the First Information Report filed after the incident nine years back.