The Trinamool Congress Government seems to have applied the Nandigram formula in the Rizwanur Rahman case by giving priced posting to the police officers found guilty of dereliction of duty.

like in the Nandigram case the West Bengal Police Department has given clean chit to shunted IPS officer Jyanwant Singh earlier charged with “bias and under performance” and appointed him as the DIG of Murshidabad Range, Home Department sources said.

Both the incidents took place in 2007 and in both the cases natural political beneficiary was the Trinamool Congress and its chief Mamata Banerjee who reaped maximum political harvest and finally went on to dislodge the Marxist Government from West Bengal. Banerjee had then demanded suspension of the guilty IPS officers in the Rizwanur case mobilising thousands of people on Kolkata roads paralysing the city for days on end and forcing then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya to transfer then Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee and shunt out two other IPS officers including then Deputy Commissioner Headquarters Jyanwant Singh.

Rizwanur who had married the daughter of Ashok Todi an industrialist against his wishes was found dead on the railway tracks at Dum Dum. While the police claimed it was a case of suicide the family of the victim and the Trinamool Congress called it a case of murder. The family of the victim alleged that both Rizwanur and his wife were repeatedly arm-twisted by the police including Singh to break the marriage. The intense pressure by the police finally culminated in Rizwanur’s death who reportedly committed suicide on the railway tracks.

In the subsequent CBI probe departmental inquiry was recommended against Singh who was however given a clean chit by the current Trinamool Government.

Singh’s posting in Murshidabad is seen against the backdrop of his acute differences with local Congress MP and PCC president Adhir Chowdhury during his tenure as the SP of the district. His appointment as the DIG of the same division is seen as a Banerjee’s ploy to increase pressure on Chowdhury an arch enemy of the Chief Minister. The Trinamool has been trying to get a toehold in Murshidabad which has three lok Sabha and 21 Assembly seats.

The State Congress on Tuesday sought to find a pattern in the ruling party’s handling of Nandigram and Rizwanur cases. Artist-cum-Congress-candidate from Jadavpur lok Sabha seat Samir Aich said, “like in Nandigram which catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power in Rizwanur case also, the Trinamool is rewarding the officers who perpetrated wrong on the citizens, adding, how the guilty officers in Nandigram were given promotion after the new Government came to power.