Missing SUCI leader found dead in Puri hotel, cops say suicide

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Kartyk Venkatraman

Posted online: Friday , April 11, 2008 at 02:08:50
Updated: Friday , April 11, 2008 at 02:08:50

Kolkata, April 10 Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) leader Bidhan Chatterjee, who had been missing for the last three days — after a much-publicised disagreement with the party top-brass — was found dead in a hotel room in Puri on Wednesday afternoon. The postmortem has concluded Chatterjee committed suicide by hanging himself.

Chatterjee had checked in at Hotel Suman as Bikash Chakraborty. The address provided by him to the hotel was 90, T L Road, Kolkata. After the police discovered his corpse on Wednesday afternoon, they called in members of SUCI's Orissa unit to identify the body. Inquiry officer of Puri's Sea Beach police station N K Panda said: "Though SUCI workers here are sure it is him, we are waiting for the Bengal police for confirmation.. There were no identification documents in the room or on Chatterjee."

Chatter, an SUCI state committee member, had shot off a five-page letter to party general secretary Prabhas Ghosh before he disappeared, accusing Ghosh of bringing disrepute on the party by forming an alliance with the Trinamool Congress. He had said this alliance represented a clash of 'core ideals'. He wrote: "In this situation, I have decided to finish himself."

The police found no injury marks on Chatterjee's body, nor were there any signs of struggle in the room. Panda said: "The hotel staff called us to say he had not come out for sometime. We forced the door open in the presence of an executive magistrate."

There remain a few questions behind this death. Police sources told The Indian Express that the SIM card of Chatterjee's mobile phone was missing. All call records and text messages were deleted from the phone memory.

However on Thursday, even as news of Chatterjee's death trickled into the city, the SUCI faxed a two-page release to the media, announcing the former leader had been expelled from the party. While expressing his condolences, senior party leader Manik Mukherjee told The Indian Express he suspected the CPM behind this. Mukherjee added: "Chatterjee's letter to Ghosh was photocopied and sent to nearly 15 addresses from separate post offices in a single day. Is it possible for one person to do that? The letter had also reached a few media houses before it reached us. It has been brought to our notice that CPM leaders and several ministers wanted to splash the letter in the media."

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