Missing documents : CPI(M) says LF govt not responsible

"We were not responsible and there was no truth in any such allegation," Leader of the Opposition in state Assembly Suryakanta Mishra said today, a day after the one-man inquiry commission, set up by the Mamata Banerjee government into the 1993 police firing in the city, said documents were found missing.

Mishra, a CPI(M) politburo member, alleged the state government had been deliberately indulging in anti-Left Front campaigns to malign Left parties and warned the government would be "in a difficult position and finally exposed if it lingers with the issue".

Justice (retd) Sushanta Chatterjee, heading the one-man commission, had said yesterday that "State Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee informed me that the documents relating to the incident, which were submitted by the then Police Commissioner to the then state Home Secretary, were not traceable."

The inquiry commission was set up in February this year at the instance of the chief minister to probe the circumstances leading to the firing and those responsible for it during a demonstration organised by Youth Congress, of which the present chief minister was the president at that time.

The terms of reference also included an inquiry into the present condition of the victims' families and the status of the police cases registered in connection with the incident, besides assessing and recommending compensation, if any, required to be paid to the victims of police firing.