Leaders of the Forward Bloc state committee have overruled the state secretary's earlier decision and demanded that the report of the judicial commission on the police firing on its workers and sympathisers be made public immediately.
Five of the Forward Bloc workers were killed in Dinhata, Coochbehar, when police fired on violent demonstrators on February 5, 2008. One home guard was also killed in the firing.
The demonstration was organized by the Forward Bloc to highlight price rise and related issues. The response of the police had created a furore in the political circles and the angry reaction of Ashok Ghosh, the state secretary of Forward Bloc, was that it’s an act of a 'barbaric government'.
The party had then demanded a judicial inquiry into it and the government readily acceded to it. The judicial commission headed by a sitting judge Narayan Chandra Sil submitted its report to the government in August, 2010.
However, the Forward Bloc state secretary made a volte face. On August 26, Ashok Ghosh issued a press statement saying that in view of the growing political tension in the state, he had requested the chief minister not to make the content of the report public, lest the opposition TMC takes advantage.
This outraged the party's North Bengal unit and led by Udayan Guha, the leader from Dinhata the party workers in North Bengal started agitating against the state leadership. Some of the workers left the party and joined TMC.
According to one leader from North Bengal, if remedial measures are not taken immediately the party might lose its entire support base there.
