Congress Nandigram candidate gets interim bail, victims’ families await closure - The Indian Express

After 11 days, the Congress’s Nandigram bypoll candidate Milan Pradhan on Tuesday received interim bail from the Calcutta High Court in murder cases linked to the 2007 land agitation. Justice Tirthankar Ghosh granted Pradhan bail for three weeks ahead of the October 6 Assembly bypoll and directed him to surrender before the Haldia court on October 21.

Pradhan was arrested on September 18, hours after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate said she was withdrawing and party chief Mamata Banerjee announced support for Pradhan. On Tuesday, Pradhan was granted interim bail in six cases from two decades ago, of which five are in Nandigram and one in neighbouring Khejuri.

A look into the four murder cases in which Pradhan is facing proceedings shows that his co-accused include prominent local leaders from the TMC and BJP. Among them is TMC leader Abu Taher who, like Pradhan, did not apply for bail earlier, and a BJP leader who said he had received bail. After Pradhan’s arrest, the police raided the homes of some of the other accused who are currently absconding.

Almost two decades ago, all of them, including Pradhan, were members of the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee, or BUPC (Committee to Resist Eviction from Land), formed to protest against land acquisition for a chemical hub. Pradhan has mentioned all four cases in his electoral affidavit. The chargesheet in all four cases mentions him as “absconding”.

Pradhan’s counsel Ajitesh Pandey said that in 2021 the TMC government withdrew cases registered during the Nandigram movement. But this decision was challenged in the Calcutta High Court, which ordered the cases to be reopened. Pradhan, he said, had never sought bail earlier in connection with the cases against him.

* Case 1 (Nandigram Police Station, Case No. 9/2007)

It was registered on January 8, 2007, three days after an attack on the house of complainant Naba Kumar Samanta resulted in the murder of his brother Shankar.

Accused: 19 people, including Pradhan, charged with rioting, unlawful assembly, house trespass, murder, and criminal intimidation, besides offences under the Arms Act.

* Case 2 (Nandigram PS, Case No. 75/2007)

On April 29, 2007,  suspected BUPC supporters shot dead 19-year-old CPI(M) worker Dilip Mondal.

Accused: Pradhan, along with 30 others, was charged with rioting, unlawful assembly, house trespass, murder, and criminal intimidation, apart from offences under the Arms Act.

* Case 3 (Nandigram PS, Case No. 188/2007)

This case was registered on November 6, 2007,  following the death of CPI(M) youth workers Tushar Kanti Shaw, Nirapada Grihanta, and Shankar Maity in an attack on a procession at Bhangabera bridge.

Accused: 20 people, including Pradhan, charged with rioting, unlawful assembly, murder, and attempted murder, among other charges.

* Case 4 (Nandigram PS, Case No. 221/2007)

On November 15, 2007, 32-year-old Chanchal Midya, a CPI(M) worker, went missing after attending a party rally in Nandigram. His body was never found. A case was registered on the complaint of his wife, Sumitra Midda.

Accused: Pradhan is among 47 people named in the case. The charges include rioting, unlawful assembly, causing grievous hurt, kidnapping or abduction with intent to murder, murder and causing disappearance of evidence.

Several BUPC leaders and workers in these cases are now associated with different political parties. Among them, three prominent names are TMC leaders Taher and Sk Sufiyan and BJP leader Swadesh Das Adhikary. All three are named along with Pradhan in cases 2 and 4, while Taher and Sufian are also named in the chargesheet in Case 3. Nishikanta Mondal, another prominent BUPC and TMC leader and an accused in all four cases, was shot dead by unidentified people in 2009.

Adhikary was with the Congress before he moved to the TMC and won a panchayat election in 2008. He subsequently joined the BJP and in 2023 won a panchayat samiti seat.

Outside the Gokulnagar gram panchayat office, Adhikary said that at one point he faced 63 cases related to the violence in Nandigram and that he is not worried about the murder cases. “The person whose protection I enjoy will take care (of me),” the BJP leader told The Indian Express.

Adhikary, who got bail along with some other accused in the case, incidentally said he doesn’t support the action against Pradhan. “I don’t support the manner in which he was arrested. Why give him such undue mileage?” Adhikary said, adding:  “Pradhan was with the BUPC. But he was not a big leader. Along with us, his name was in various cases. His uncle, Sabuj Pradhan, was an important local leader from the Congress. Other big leaders such as Nishikanta Mondal, Sk Sufiyan, and Abu Taher are on the accused list. Many of the accused persons are either with the  BJP or the TMC now.”

Taher told The Indian Express that 84 cases were filed against him in connection with the Nandigram violence. Though most were withdrawn, seven were reopened following the High Court order. “I did not apply for bail in those cases. However, I heard Pradhan also did not get bail in these cases. He should have applied for bail,” said Taher, who is not active politically but identifies himself as a supporter of Mamata Banerjee.

Despite multiple attempts, Sk Sufiyan could not be reached.

While the political battle continues in Nandigram — the BJP has fielded Hasirani Rath, the mother of CM Suvendu Adhikari’s aide Chandranath Rath who was gunned down near Kolkata on May 6,  hours after the BJP came to power — time has stood still for the families of the victims.

Standing by the door of her house in Raynagar in Nandigram, 45-year-old Sumitra Midda recalled the political violence from two decades ago. She said she now supports the BJP. “After what the TMC did to our family, how can I support them?” Sumitra said.

“My husband was a CPI(M) worker. In those days, there were frequent clashes between CPI(M) and the BUPC. My husband was driven out of home for eight months. He returned home briefly on that fateful day and left to attend a CPI(M) rally. He never came back,” she said.

Her younger son was a year old when his father disappeared. “The case started after that. Five or six years ago, TMC people took me to the police station, where I signed some papers saying that I did not want to pursue the case. At that time, the TMC was in power and I did what I was told,” she said.

Around 10 km away, in Gokulnagar, Dilip Mondal’s 70-year-old mother Anjali is all alone. “He was my only son. He had got married just a year before it happened,” she said. While her daughter-in-law left the village after the killing, Anjali’s husband died a few years later.

“The area was tense in those days. He (Dilip) had just stepped out of the house when some people came and asked him to identify a villager’s house. He refused. They dragged him near a pond and shot him dead. I don’t know anything about the case. Some years ago, they (TMC workers) made me sign some papers,” she said.

Anjali earns a living by straightening and combing human hair used to make wigs. Untangling a kilo takes her around eight days and earns her Rs 350, she said. “My life has no meaning now. I don’t know about the election or the arrest,” she said.

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