The Trinamool Congress and its ally Congress today hit the streets, demanding a probe into the Sainbari massacre, which took place 40 years ago. The FIR lodged in the case allegedly has names of CPM bigwigs like Nirupam Sen, Binoy Konar and Anil Basu as the accused. Earlier, the Trinamool had raked up issues like Food Movement, Morichjhampi massacre, Tebhaga agitations to corner the ruling CPM.

The Trinamool leaders today demonstrated on the Alipore court premises and congregated near the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, while state Congress leaders visited Sainbari in Burdwan to commemorate 40 years of the incident.

In the afternoon a huge rally was undertaken by the Trinamool led by Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Partho Chatterjee and Trinamool state president Subrata Bakshi. The rally started from Birla Planetorium. Simultaneous rallies and protests were organised throughout the city.

“For 40 years, the victims of Sainbari massacre could not get justice. After the CPM came to power in 1977, they set the accused free. The accused CPM leaders are now Cabinet ministers. We want justice,” said Chatterjee.

The Trinamool leaders stated that victims of other political violence like Nanur massacre and Choto Angaria are also yet to get justice and the party will take sustained agitations to highlight the issues.

Meanwhile, the state Youth Congress organised a rally in Sainbari in Burdwan and lambasted the CPM. Senior leaders like Pradip Bhattacharjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Amitava Chakraborty reached Sainbari and alleged that the CPM leaders who are accused in the case have been deliberately provided relief by the state government.

Earlier in the day, the Trinamool Congress and its ally had protested on the floor of the Assembly after their adjournment motion on the incident was rejected by the Speaker.

Congress and Trinamool members were on their feet as soon as Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim rejected the adjournment motion on the murder case. Halim said he rejected the motion as it pertained to an incident that happened long ago.

The Congress and Trinamool members claimed that the Speaker had rejected the motion to shield Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, who was an accused in the case, and was present in the House.

The trump cards
* The Sainbari murders occurred on March 17, 1970, in Burdwan district when a youth was hacked to death, allegedly by CPM supporters, and his blood was smeared on the face of his mother because the family had refused to switchover to the Marxist party from the Congress. Other members of the family were also killed

* The Tebhaga movement was a militant agitation launched by Kisan Sabha (peasants’ front of the CPI) in 1946. At that time share-cropping peasants had to give half of their harvest to the owners of the land. The demand of the Tebhaga (sharing by thirds) movement was to reduce the share given to landlords to one third

* The Food Movement was also launched by the CPI in 1959 when the state was suffering from acute food shortage