Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday announced that his government would reopen cases relating to the alleged atrocities during the Left Front regime in Nandigram, promising fresh FIRs and stringent legal action against several former CPI(M) leaders, nearly two decades after the violence that scarred the region.
Addressing a gathering at Gokulnagar on the 19th anniversary of 'Operation Suryodaya', Adhikari said the investigation conducted by the CID during the erstwhile Trinamool Congress (TMC) regime had failed to culminate in a complete judicial process, leaving those responsible unpunished.
“The CID conducted an investigation, but there was no trial. I have said that fresh FIRs will be filed and cases reopened against those responsible,” Adhikari said, naming CPI(M) leaders Abhay Ghosh, Manoranjan Patra, Tapan Ghosh and Himanshu Das, among others.
Operation Suryodaya was a controversial offensive allegedly orchestrated by CPI(M) cadres on November 10, 2007, to regain control of Nandigram, where the ruling party had lost ground following resistance to land acquisition by the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), a platform of affected farmers backed by the TMC and others.
Recalling the violence, Adhikari alleged that 11 people were abducted, tied with their hands behind their backs and detained at a gram panchayat office in Baratala before being taken to Kamarda and killed at a CPI(M) party office. Their bodies were subsequently packed into bags and dumped in the sea, he claimed.
The chief minister said the 19-year-old tragedy had yet to receive justice. He alleged that armed groups from outside the area had been brought in to carry out organised attacks on villagers.
Nandigram, which became an epicentre of the anti-land acquisition movement in Purba Medinipur district, played a defining role in the political mobilisation that eventually ended the Left Front's 34-year rule in West Bengal in 2011, bringing Mamata Banerjee to power.
At Tuesday's programme, Adhikari also criticised the response of the then Left Front government to the violence, recalling a controversial remark by former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that the victims had been “paid back by their own coin”.
“Although the late chief minister was an honest person in his personal life, his party was in the wrong,” Adhikari said.
He described the violence as a “blood-soaked sunrise” while referring to remarks by senior Left leaders who had called the developments in Nandigram the rise of a “new sun”.
Adhikari put the number of those who lost their lives during the prolonged agitation at 41. He also alleged that the previous TMC government had failed to issue death certificates to the families of missing people. He said his government had addressed the issue, provided jobs to nine family members of the deceased and given Rs 4 lakh in compensation to each victim's family.
Meanwhile, Adhikari on Monday commented on the arrest of TMC MLA Paresh Ram Das in connection with an alleged rape case, claiming that the legislator had been attempting to flee to Mumbai.
“He was fleeing to Mumbai. The allegations against him must be true; why else would he try to flee?” Adhikari said, adding that the MLA had previously used abusive language against him and allegedly encroached on irrigation land to build an old-age home.
Paresh Ram Das, the TMC MLA from Canning Paschim, was arrested at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata on Monday while allegedly attempting to travel to Mumbai to avoid cooperating with the investigation, police said.
Additional Superintendent of Police Atish Biswas said the complaint related to an incident in 2023 and was registered at Canning Police Station on September 5. Ram Das is the principal accused in the case, he said.
According to police, the case was registered under Sections 376, 323, 420, 120B and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. A special team of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Baruipur Police District detained him at the airport with assistance from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate. He was subsequently arrested and was being brought to Baruipur for further investigation and legal proceedings.
Former actor and West Bengal government advisor Mithun Chakraborty also commented on the arrest, saying there must have been grounds for the police action.
“There must have been something against him. Otherwise, why would the police arrest someone at the airport? The police cannot arrest anyone arbitrarily. There must be a summons or an FIR, and only then can an arrest be made,” he said.
The proposed reopening of the Nandigram cases and the arrest of the TMC legislator come amid renewed political exchanges between the BJP and the TMC in West Bengal.