Introduction: Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s views on USIS attack in sharp contrast with party hardliners
The West Bengal government on Tuesday endorsed the Centre's position holding Pakistan backed Lashkar-e-Toiba for the attack on Kolkata's American Centre. The position of the state government was put out by Soumen Mitra, Kolkata's deputy commissioner of police heading the probe into the terror attack on the American Center, after a visit to Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.
Mr Mitra quoted the dying declaration of one of the slain terrorists, Zaheed, to back his case against Lashkar-e-Toiba, the jehadi outfit with proven ISI links. An agency report quoted the police official as saying that dying declaration of Zaheed also tallied with the statement recorded by Kolkata police from the eye-witnesses to the strike.
Mr Mitra's statement puts the focus once again on the growing convergence of views between the Centre and the Buddhadev Bhattcharya government while the CPM remains critical of the former's ways of battling terror. In the days since the attack on American Centre in Kolkata the West Bengal chief minister has made remarks which go very closer to the Centre's position, but out of sync with the line of his own party.
Today's statement of Mi Mitra, who leads the state government's special investigation team, is in keeping with the pattern, and at odds with the CPM's stance over the possible culpability of Pakistani elements, including the ISI. Last week, politburo member, Sitaram Yechuri, criticised Union home minister, L K Advani, for suspecting the ISI's role in the attack.
Mr Yechuri and others in the politburo have kept quiet since their own comrade, chief minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharya, publicly blamed the ISI to make West Bengal into another J&K, but speculation has heightened that the hardliners may force the state government to backtrack on the planned crackdown on the madrasas which have been functioning as ISI facilities in the border districts of the state.
The chief minister had to step back
when the two rival centres of power clashed last: over the state government’s
plan to bring in a Poto-type law to deal with the crime syndicates like
the one led by Aftab Ansari, alleged kidnapper of the managing director
of Khadim shoes who is suspected to have masterminded the attack on the
American Center. That the chief minister has revived his plans for the
law may be a sign that the politburo may not find the goings similarly
easy in the latest round.