Sainbari incident

The Sainbari incident occurred in 1970 in the house of Sain family in Bardhaman in West Bengal in India, where several innocent people were killed by members of the CPI(M).[1][2]

• 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.