SC gives West Bengal a week to reply to plea for post-poll violence SIT

NEW DELHI: Amid high-octane political drama over the CBI arresting West Bengal ministers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Mamata Banerjee government’s response within a week to a PIL by relatives of two of 18 murdered BJP workers for a court monitored SIT/CBI probe into post-poll mayhem allegedly unleashed by TMC workers.
A vacation bench of Justices Vineet Saran and B R Gavai issued notice to the West Bengal government after senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani alleged that TMC goons had licence from the police to attack BJP workers, leading to the death of 22 people.
The first petitioner, Biswajit Sarkar, is the younger brother of Abhijit Sarkar, who was killed by a mob of 20 TMC supporters on May 2. The second petitioner, Swarnalata, is the widow of booth-level BJP worker Haran Adhikari who was killed in the presence of his 80-year-old father and minor son. The petitioners said the two murder cases be investigated by the CBI and provided the SC with a list of 16 other murders of BJP workers that they alleged were part of a well-orchestrated post-poll violence.
The petition inferred that the post-poll violence had the sanction of the newly elected government as the police stood as mute spectators as the TMC mob went on a rampage.
They sought a “fair probe by an SC-appointed SIT into the murders and largescale incidents of violence unleashed at the behest of a particular political party, and further to examine the failure of the state administration which has chosen to turn a blind eye, leaving victims of these crimes remediless.”
The petitioners alleged that there was an atmosphere of fear around BJP workers and their families.