The Hindu : Controversy surrounds death of excise inspector

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 09, 2002

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Controversy surrounds death of excise inspector

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA JULY 8. Mystery shrouds the death of the central excise inspector, Abhijit Sinha, who was recently arrested in Midnapore for his alleged links with the People's War Group (PWG).

The son-in-law of an officer of the State intelligence, Moloy Sinha, the 32-year-old Abhijit's body was found near the Ultadanga railway station, a Kolkata suburb. His family alleged that he had committed suicide on Sunday due to ``police harassment in a false case.''

But the IGP, Chayan Mukherjee, said it was a case of suicide and denied charges of harassment. ``The Human Rights Commission is free to look into the charges of harssment,'' he added.

The West Midnapore police, on being informed about Sinha's alleged links with the PWG, went to his Dum Dum residence on Thursday night and picked him up. "Police asked him to report to the Midnapore district inspector's office on Saturday for further interrogation. During the interrogation, nothing much was found against him and he was allowed to go home,'' Mr. Mukherjee said.

The CPI(M-L) leader, Kanu Sanyal, today charged the police with raising the bogey of the PWG and making indiscriminate arrests. For the record, the State police has rounded up some key PWG functionaries from across West Bengal for what it alleged "waging a war against the State.''

Mr. Sanyal said it was surprising that police arrested Abhijit only because his name figured in the diary of a person arrested for having links with the PWG. He was referring to the arrest of Kaushik Ganguly, a chemistry professor at the Science College, Kolkata.

According to Mr. Sanyal, Ganguly was "falsely implicated'' for his alleged links with the PWG. "I know him personally. He is in no way connected with the PWG,'' Mr. Sanyal said.

"Police are arresting people for PWG links without having any hard evidence or proof.''

Mr. Sanyal said he would meet the Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and lodge complaints against the "police-highhandedness.'' Mr. Sanyal also threatened to launch an agitation to protest against such arrests.

Police, however, denied any indiscriminate arrests saying the extremist outfits such as the PWG and the MKSS were active in Midnapore and Bankura and were expanding their bases through certain individuals and groups.

"We have gathered certain information from a person we arrested a few days ago. The raids will continue,'' he said.

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