A cult killed twice

The incident took place on the morning of April 30, 1982, at Bondel Gate and at a nearby flyover—Bijan Setu in south Kolkata.

The 17 Ananda Margis, who belonged to different parts of the country, were on their way to their headquarters at Tiljala in south Kolkata where their global headquarters was under construction at that time. A mob intercepted their taxis, dragged them out, beat them to death and then set their bodies afire. Eyewitnesses later said that the waiting mob cried ‘‘child lifters’’ before they started beating them.

An hour later all that remained on the road were 17 charred bodies. The then chief minister Jyoti Basu described the incident nonchalantly as an “outburst of public fury”. ‘‘People thought they were all child lifters who were active in that area,” Basu had said.

The only thing that Basu did was to order a judicial inquiry into the killings. Subsequently on May 12, a one-man commission headed by the then Calcutta High Court Justice Samarendra Deb was set up. It was asked to submit its report within a year. Later it was given eight more months.

Officials say the Deb Commission had a couple of sittings but was never able to compile a full report. “The Commission was allowed to die a natural death,” says Justice Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee, a former Judge at the Calcutta High Court.

Controversy has always accompanied the Ananda Marg sect. In December 1995 it got entangled in the Purulia arms drop case. However, all the convicted in the case—five Latvians and one Briton, Peter Bleach—were later released and the Ananda Marg too was absolved of all charges. The sect has also been accused of indulging in ‘tandav nritya’ (dancing with skulls and other weapons).

The Ananda Marg was set up in 1955 by Prabhat Ranjan Sarker who later came to be called Ananda Murthiji. The sect that has its registered office in Purulia, claims ‘‘total moral and physical upliftment of all human beings’’ as its lofty aim. It runs educational institutions, hospitals, orphanages and has about 800 ashrams in India and 200 abroad.

The organisation, however, puts down all controversies to its differences with the West Bengal government. Says Krishneswarananda, an official in the sect, who survived the 1982 attack: ‘‘We worked for the poor and our influence among them was growing.

The CPI(M) was never happy about that. And they got alarmed when we started building the ashram.’’

He also denies rumours that the Margis were child lifters, blaming the CPI(M) of spreading these rumours. ‘‘No case of child lifting was ever registered against us in any police station.’’

The Kolkata police also allege involvement of the CPI(M) in the massacre of the Margis. ‘‘It was at the behest of the CPI(M) that the massacre took place. The CPI(M) and the Ananda Margis had always been at daggers drawn in the state. The Marxists were never happy about their increasing clout at that time. The massacre was all pre-planned otherwise how do you explain a mob carrying cans of petrol at 7 in the morning? And the police did not do anything because of political pressure,’’ says a police officer.

The CPI(M), however, denies any involvement in the incident. ‘‘The Margis have always had internal squabbles and fought with each other and died in the process. The CPI(M) has got nothing to do with this. They blamed the then MLA of Ballygunge the late Sachin Sen for the massacre and campaigned against him. But in the next election Sen won by a margin of 14,000 votes,’’ says Rabin Deb, the Left Front chief whip, who represents Ballygunge in the Assembly.

The case may have died down, but the war certainly hasn’t.