KOLKATA: “There was no need to fire bullets to control the crowd located far away from Writers’ Building,” Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari read out from the Sushanta Chatterjee Commission’s report on police firing on a Mamata Banerjeeled Youth Congress rally on July 21, 1993, that led to 12 deaths. The report said the firing was “worse than the Jallianwala Bagh massacre”. The commission was set up in 2011 by the erstwhile Trinamool govt and the report was submitted to govt in Dec 2024. It was tabled in the assembly by the CM Monday, on the eve of the 33rdanniversary of the killings.The July 21 “Martyrs Day” rally has been a showpiece event of Trinamool, which until last year.Accusing her of sitting on the panel’s recommendations for nearly two years, the CM said, “If you (the families of the 12 dead and more than 50 injured activists) want to file afresh FIR, this govt will give you that opportunity.”Several IPS officers were indicted in the report.Then Kolkata Police commissioner Tushar Talukdar, who died in Jan 2024, had said he did not order the firing.Suvendu said, “The biggest of all witnesses, Mamata Banerjee, did not appear before the commission.”
