Burdwan Sainbari Case

 “Sainbari” Case

Allegations/Charges framed

• Sri Nirupam Sen, Sri Binoy Konar, Sri Amal Halder and Sri Anil Bose were directly involved in the Sainbari murder case.
• A few other eminent personalities, like Subodh Chowdhury, Sushil Bhattacharyya, Ramnarayan Goswami, Abdul Rashid, Ashwini Hazara, et al also took active part in the Sainbari murder case.
• Media alleges that Sri Khokon Sen’s name figures out in the charge sheet. This Khokon Sen is Sri Nirupam Sen who changed his name to avoid the charges.
• All documents related to the said case had been destroyed by the Left Front Government with the help of the Co-ordination Committee members of the court.
• Since no documental evidences exist after such destruction, the case was withdrawn from the court.
• All the murderers must be punished and so is the necessity to move to the Supreme Court.

Real Facts

• No doubt, it was a shocking incident that occurred 40 years back. At the time of the incident, Sri Amal Halder was a teenaged student of an institution far away from Burdwan and Sri Anil Bose was neither an active party member nor was he present in Burdwan during that period. Moreover, their names were not there in the initial FIR or any Charge Sheet framed later on.
• Other reputed persons whose names were included in the FIR were either not present at Burdwan town on the day of the incident or they do have such a social recognition that no conscious person can think of them as murderers. Due to this, probably, the CPI(M) candidate Mr. Binoy Chowdhury (on securing 28257 votes) was elected as the MLA from this Burdwan town defeating the Congress candidate Mr. Pradip Bhattacharyya (who secured 26985 votes) in the Assembly election held in 1971, just few months after the incident.
• Moreover, Mr. Subodh Chowdhury was a dedicated Freedom Fighter and a veteran Communist leader. Mr. Binoy Konar and Mr. Ramnarayan Goswami were present outside of Burdwan town on the day and time of the incident for addressing a rally elsewhere. Mr. Abdul Rashid, Mr. Sushil Bhattacharyya and Mr. Ashwini Hazara were all honorable persons dedicated to the cause of the people and were respected by every town-dweller. People of Burdwan town even elected Mr. Sushil Bhattacharyya as an M.P. Can one believe that these persons were involved in the said murder case?
• Sri Nirupam Sen was a student leader then and at the time of the incident he was present at Burdwan Raj College looking after a Haratal/Bandh. Moreover, in the formal FIR, his name was absent. Complaints against Sri Sen were made by Sri Dilip Bhattacharjee who was a worker of the then Chattra Parishad. This implies that the inclusion of the name of Sri Nirupam Sen in the case was the result of narrow and mean students’ politics.
• Later on, Sri Nirupam Sen’s name was included in the Charge Sheet. Furthermore, in the Charge Sheet there was no one named as Sri Khokon Sen.
• Sri. Dilip Bhattacharjee, the main complainant, later on confessed that the statement made in the FIR was not his own, but of the leader (Nurul Islam) of his party who in collusion with the investigating officers got the statement recorded in the names of various witnesses.
• Witnesses like Sri Bejoy Sain (younger brother of the deceased), Smt. Ithika Dutta, Sri. Amalakanta Jash (the husband of the sister of the deceased) and Smt. Swaranlata Jash (sister of the deceased), inter alia, accepted that the case was fabricated. Further, all witnesses revealed that the then investigating officers under the direction of a few so-called Congress leaders instructed them to give false witness and that no accused persons were also identified by them in the TI parade.
• Mr. Bhabadish Roy, the defenders’ Lawyer was even murdered by the Congress hooligans in 1971 to sweep the real story under the carpet and also to facilitate the punishment of falsely accused persons of CPI(M) Party.
• The case was not withdrawn at all. The Hon’ble Additional Session Judge, 3rd Court, Alipore, Sri R. K. Kar rather observed that the accused persons were not guilty and consequently they were acquitted from all the charges u/s 321 (b) cr. p.c., dated 6th May 1978.
• In the last 40 years, there was not even a single attempt, from any side, to move the case to the higher Court. However, there was an appeal for obtaining relevant information from the appropriate authority under RTI Act, which was dismissed as according to law it is not mandatory to furnish/keep information if 25 years passes after the occurrence of an incident.
• The present write-up is an outcome of the author’s research work based on the original relevant documents available from different reliable sources.

Aftermath of Sainbari case

Sainbari earned a bad name in the town and that bad reputation continued for a long time as its members used to flex muscles frequently, torture innocent poor people and were also involved in different criminal activities. This loathing old tradition of Sainbari got momentum after the incident and many extremely cruel incidents took place in and around Burdwan town, three of which are mentioned below:

• The entire Allhadipur village of Burdwan district was set ablaze by the hooligans belonging to the Congress party and the senior most Sain brother.
• Mass scale assassination occurred at Chokbalrampur at the instigation of a Sain Brother. Worst of all, the corpses were hanged in a tree and all villagers were forced to see the ghastly scene.
• Many CPI(M) innocent supporters/leaders at Burdwan town were brutally murdered by the Congress hooligans.

Why Sri Nirupam Sen?

Sri Nirupam Sen is a polite, down to earth person whom everybody holds in high esteem in the political domain and beyond. He was instrumental in framing the development policies for the State in general and for Burdwan in particular. A few such notable initiatives for Burdwan are: Super-Specialty Hospital, Burdwan Development Authority, Science Centre and Science Museum, Meghnand Saha Planetarium, Health City, Krishna Shayer Eco-Garden, University Institute of Technology (UIT), Modernization of the Funeral Site (including LPG Chulli), Satellite Townships like Ulhaas, Renaissance, two modern bus terminals, etc. He won the assembly election of 1987 and also the last 2 assembly elections; during those periods such concocted allegations were never raised. Naturally, these baseless charges/allegations are an attempt to malign his impeccable character with the objective of making an effort not only to defeat him in the forthcoming assembly election but also to jeopardize the drive for industrialization in West Bengal.

Let the Public decide and respond to such an attempt of character assassination of Sri Nirupam Sen.