By IANS
Kolkata : The West Bengal government Sunday ordered a judicial probe into the police firing in a northern town that left five Forward Bloc supporters and a cop dead last week.
A senior state official said the government has ordered a judicial probe. However, the name of the judge was yet to be announced.
A judicial probe was demanded by the Left Front constituents – Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Communist Party of India (CPI).
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who belongs to the largest Front constituent Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), had earlier ordered a magisterial inquiry into the firing.
On Feb 5, Forward Bloc, the second largest constituent of the Left Front government, had organised a statewide protest, demanding minimum 100 days’ employment for the jobless, below-poverty-line (BPL) cards for the poor, cancellation of the special economic zones (SEZs) policy to secure farmers’ land rights and job quotas for Muslims.
But the programme turned violent and police resorted to firing killing five Bloc supporters. One cop was also killed in the violence.
Bloc had called a statewide shutdown Wednesday to protest the killings and later termed the firing “second Nandigram”.