January 20, 2011
The state is unable to protect human lives, observes High Court
Kolkata, Jan 20: The High Court has clearly said that the state is unable to protect ‘the lives and living amenities of the common people’, while giving its ruling on the Netai massacre. In an interim 17-page ruling on Wednesday, the High Court clearly has observed that—‘No civilized society can tolerate such an incident and we have no hesitation to come to the conclusion that the state has failed to protect their human and fundamental right to life and personal liberty.’ On a day of further political developments, the Governor M K Narayanan paid a visit to Netai. When he reached there, it seemed that it was not the Governor but the country’s former top cop who emerged from the car and inspected the surroundings. Narayanan looked at the bullet holes on the walls and then inspected the house which had the ‘Harmad’ camp. After spending about 10 minutes there, he turned to the 30-odd villagers who were gathered there. 55-year old Ranjit Patra, who lost his son Arup on that fateful day, was the first to approach the Governor. Tears rolled down Patra’s eyes as he gave a graphic detail of what had taken place that day. On the same day, Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee said that the “CPM will have to pay for its own sinsâ€, before leaving for Delhi. Ridiculing the Chief Minister’s claim of Maoist-Trinamool nexus, Banerjee said that it was CPM that had ‘recaptured’ Garbeta and Keshpur with Maoist help. “A CBI investigation or investigation by any other impartial agency will establish thisâ€, she said.
