The Bengal Government on Monday received yet another kick in the teeth from the State Human Rights Commission (HRC), which found the police wanting in discharging its responsibilities causing the custodial death of student leader Sudipto Sen in April this year.
A Students’ Federation of India leader, Sen was mysteriously killed in custody while being ferried along with his colleagues to the Presidency Jail in Kolkata after a students’ demonstration.
Apart from pulling up the men in khaki, a full Bench of the WBHRC recommended a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for kin of the dead while saying the “unfortunate” incident could have been avoided, had the police been “more alert” and “careful” and acted in a “professional” manner.
“The commission has ordered the Government to pay compensation within two months,” a source said. Another victim, Joseph Hussein, who had nearly lost his right arm during alleged police lath-charge the same day was awarded Rs 3 lakh as cost of treatment.
“Money matters little for us. I consider myself fortunate because I am still alive. I feel for Sudipto’s father who is still alive” Hussain said from Murshidabad adding “the Government will never heed Commission’s order.”
Even as allegations flew thick and fast after the incident that drew thousands of people on Kolkata streets some eyewitnesses alleged the 24-year-old-victim was brutally assaulted by the policemen causing he death. However top cops in Kolkata claimed he had banged his head against a lamppost while he was hanging out of the bus in which he and his comrades were being ferried.
His death created a nation-wide uproar particularly when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reacted before the Bengaluru media calling it a “small incident, petty incident.”
Curiously while the Home Ministry promised an impartial probe nothing has so far been done from the Government side. “We have not been called, no questions have been asked and no investigation started,” close relatives of Gupta said demanding once again a CBI probe into the incident.
While there was no official response from the Government, a senior TMC leader and a Minister said, “the Commission does not hold police guilty of killing Sudipto Gupta, it has only criticised their indifference thereby vindicating our stance that he was not murdered.”
Incidentally, Monday’s was the third major case of indictment in recent times. Earlier, the Commission had awarded Rs 2 lakh to Shiladitya Chowd-hury of lalgarh who was arrested and kept behind the bar after being branded Maoist by the Chief Minister at a public rally when he raised questions on rising price of fertilisers.
The Commission also directed the Government to pay Rs 50,000 to Ambikesh Mahapatra a professor at Jadavpur University who was arrested for circulating a cartoon of the CM on the Net.
While the Government has remained indifferent to the earlier orders, the Commi-ssion’s repeated indictment of her regime has led the CM and her colleagues to attack it intermittently.
So much so that while WBHRC Chairman Justice AK Ganguly recently observed that Bengal had only seen a change of jersey and not the quality of governance the State Gover-nment wrote to Delhi seeking to inquire into his visit to Pakistan to deliver a lecture.
Meanwhile, in a double whammy of sorts the Calcutta High Court on Monday pulled up the police for inaction in a murder case that took place in 2009. Decrying police indifference in such matters Justice Sanjib Banerjee directed the cops to arrest the accused in 15 days’ time.