Deaths in police firing very unfortunate, says Buddha

West Bengal Chief Minister regretfully says that he has ordered magisterial probe into the deaths that came about in the police firing.

Terming as ‘very unfortunate’ the death of six Forward Bloc activists in police firing in West Bengal, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday said a magisterial probe had been ordered into the incident.

“It is a very unfortunate incident. We have instituted a magisterial inquiry into it,” he told reporters in New Delhi after a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Bhattacharjee, who arrived in the capital last night, said he had spoken to Forward Bloc’s state unit chief Ashok Ghosh on telephone in this regard.

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The party, a constituent of West Bengal’s ruling Left Front, observed a statewide shutdown on Wednesday to protest the killings in police firing in Coochbehar district.

This is the first time in the 31-year-old history of the Left Front in the state that workers of a constituent party were killed in police firing.

It is also the first time that an alliance partner gave the call for an anti-government bandh.