Nadia court sentences to death 11 land-grab 'terrorists'

The 11 persons (including below) given the death sentence come out of Krishnagar
court on Thursday. Pictures by Pranab Debnath

SUBHASISH CHAUDHURI, TT, Krishnagar, Feb. 4: A Nadia court today sentenced to death 11 men who acted like "terrorists" by killing a woman during an attempt to grab land that 55 families had been cultivating for two decades under an unofficial Left-era understanding that aimed to distribute plots among those displaced during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

On November 23, 2014, around 30 men led by a local tough who claims to be a Trinamul activist had first tried to destroy with tractors the crop on the 8.28 acres that the families cultivated. Faced with resistance from those working in the field, mostly women, they fired 40 rounds indiscriminately, killing 45-year-old Aparna Bag and injuring three, including a 14-year-old boy.

Many of these families had crossed over to India from Bangladesh in the 1970s and 1980s, the heyday of Left rule during which the slogan " langol jar, jomi tar (the one wielding the plough owns the land)" had been coined.

The 55 families had been cultivating the land since the early 90s. In 1985, the government gave rights to the land, which belonged to the refugee relief and rehabilitation department, to Phatik Sarkar, Sashadhar Joardar and some other people displaced during the 1971 war. They never claimed the land, but three years ago, a descendant of an allottee sold less than an acre for Rs 6 lakh to two persons, including one who was sentenced to death today.

Since then, the alleged Trinamul tough, Lankeswar Ghosh, and 11 of his associates had been trying to take forcible possession of the entire 8.28 acres in Nadia's Krishnaganj.

Today, additional district and sessions judge Partha Sarathi Mukherjee told a packed Krishnagar courtroom that the 12 men, including absconding convict Manabesh Ghosh, had committed a crime that was rarest of rare and deserved "strong" punishment.

Aparna Bag’s daughters offer flowers to their mother’s photograph in Nadia’s
Krishnaganj after the 11 accused were sentenced to death. Pic: Pranab Debnath

"During prosecution, it has been amply proved that you had no enmity with the victims and the 55 families who were cultivating the land. You were not even the owners of the land, nor farmers, nor even occupants by any means or even a sharecropper," the judge said.

Other than Lankeswar, 52, the other sentenced to death were Palash Ghosh (to whom Anita Dutta, the descendant of an allottee, had sold a part of the land), Nepal Ghosh, Ashu Ghosh, Rajkumar Ghosh, Prabhash Ghosh, Joydeb Ghosh, Goutam Ghosh, Jhantu Ghosh, Shyamal Ghosh and Sanat Ghosh.

A Calcutta High Court judge said so many people had not been sentenced to death in a single case in Bengal since the capital punishment handed to seven persons by a Burdwan court in 1985 for murdering a farmer. All seven were acquitted by the high court.

All the men in the Krishnaganj case were found guilty under several sections of the IPC, the Explosives Act and the Arms Act.

"You went to grab the land in a pre-planned manner, taking arms and ammunition with you, which suggests you were determined to kill anybody who came in your way," judge Mukherjee said.

"You fired indiscriminately on innocent women when they tried to resist it (the land grab), hurled explosives and killed an innocent woman. Three other persons were injured in the attack. They could also have been killed by the bullets you fired. You all acted like terrorists. You deserve strong punishment," he added.

According to a Nadia official, Krishnaganj was one of the many places in the district that has witnessed a heavy influx of people from Bangladesh since Partition.

Despite the Left government's attempts to distribute land rights among them, many of those arriving since the 1970s are yet to get formal recognition and allied facilities.

A source in the Nadia land and land reforms department said the 55 families in Krishnaganj, "around 30 of whom had crossed over from Bangladesh", had been farming the land since the early 90s on the "advice" of the local panchayat, which was then run by the CPM.

Defence lawyer Kajal Ghosh said today's verdict was "unexpected" and the convicts would move the high court soon.

Victim Aparna's husband Debananda and teenaged daughters Nilima and Devika, who were among the key witnesses in the case, welcomed the verdict.