Nandigram Massacre—former CPM MP arrested – The Pioneer -18.3.12

I n a major setback for the Opposition Left Front, particularly the CPI(M), West Bengal CID on Saturday arreste d   f o r  m e r   M e m b  e r   o f P a r l i  a m e n t   f  r om   E  a s t Midnapore Laxman Seth from Mumbai. He was picked up in connection with a 2007 mass murder case in Nandigram. Seth was arrested along with Amiya Sahoo a former MLA and Ashok Guria a senior district leader. The three arrested CPI(M) party functionaries were produced in a Mumbai court. On transit remand, the three are being taken to Kolkata. The Mumbai Police has helped the West Bengal-CID in the operation. Investigations have revealed that Seth and his two party  colleagues had been staying in the Chembur guest house for the last one week. They had come to the city from Hyderabad.

The accused along with 85 others had been chargesheeted in a November 2007 case of mass murder when seven Trinamool Congress supporters had disappeared from a rally allegedly after they were picked up and murdered before being disposed off in the Bay of Bengal. Investigations got a fillip af  t e r   t h e  ne w Tr  inamoo l Government  came  to  power. The accused had since been absconding. “They were bound to be apprehended by the long hands of law some day,” said Union M ini s t e r   and  local Trinamool MP Sisir Adhikary, adding “the people of Nandigram would get the final justice when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Biman Bose will be arrested.” While Bose had called the i n c i d e n t   “ r  e - c a p t u r e   o f Nandigram” by CPI(M) cadre on the fateful day as a “new daybreak”, Bhattacharjee had said “they (the Trinamool men) have been paid back in their own coins.”

“We have arrested the accused from Mumbai and would be brought back to Bengal in a transit remand from a Bandra court,” State DG CID, VV Thambi said. Another senior CPI(M) leader and former Minister Sushanto Ghosh was arrested in a skeleton recovery case from West Midnapore and had to cool his  heels behind the bar for six months before he was released on bail early this month. Saturday’s arrest could come as a big political blow to the CPI(M)—which still called the developments as “Mamata Banerjee’s politics of vendetta” - at a time the party was gaining politically on account of the Congress- Trinamool Congress  rift and partly on account of the reported rising issues of law and order and farmer deaths in the State.