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Bengal fit case for central rule: NDA team

The five-member National Democratic Alliance team that visited Garbeta, the site of the killing of Trinamul supporters by alleged CPI-M activists, is of the opinion that West Bengal is a fit case for imposition of Article 356.

This was stated by BJP MP Vijay Goel who led the team that visited the site of the crime on Monday morning. The team returned to Calcutta in the evening.

Goel said that the team would submit its report to NDA convenor George Fernandes in a day or two.

He said that the Central Bureau of Investigation should probe the Garbeta incident and that the Centre should intervene if the state government blocked a CBI probe.

"We have visited the scene of the crime. The law and order mechanism has totally failed. The police has not been totally impartial. They were not willing to initiate any investigation into the episode. No action has been taken to trace the culprits or the dead bodies. The investigation cannot be handed over to a police force that has lost its credibility," Goel told rediff.com.

Sanjay Nirupam, another member of the team, said, "There is total terror in the state. No one is willing to open his or her mouth. Under such circumstances, only solution is to impose President's rule."

Nirupam expressed surprise that the district administration had not cared to use the services of sniffer dogs to trace the dead bodies.

He repeated Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee's allegation that the district police, with the help of local CPI-M cadres, had removed all the dead bodies to the neighbouring jungle of Jaipur.

Nirupam lamented that even after 72 hours after the incident, the police were unable to arrest the eight persons named in the FIR.

The other members of the team are Sudip Bandopadhyay (Trinamul Congress), Inderjit Singh (INLD), Prabhat Shankar (BJD) and Srikrishan (MDMK).

The team members held a press conference at the Calcutta press Club on Monday evening. Mamata Banerjee, however, refused to speak to mediapersons.

Meanwhile, Anil Biswas, state CPI-M secretary, pooh-poohed the threat of central rule. Biswas said, "The Centre has made many threats to impose President's rule. Nothing has happened so far. Let them impose central rule and see the consequences for themselves. The people of Bengal will not accept anything undemocratic step."

Biswas said that he had no information about what happened in Garbeta on Thursday night.

On whether the Left Front would send a parliamentary delegation to the massacre site, Biswas said nothing had been decided as yet.

Sources within the CPI-M told rediff.com that the party was likely to discuss the possibilities in the state committee meeting on January 10.

The CPI-M had sent a five member parliamentary team led by Biplab Dasgupta to Keshpur late last year to investigate the political violence there.

The NDA team, which left for Delhi on Monday night, also held a brief discussion with the 'bed-ridden' Mamata at the latter's residence. However, Mamata refused to speak to the media on what transpired between her and the members of the NDA team.

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