Talk:Marxist Co-ordination Committee

The Murder of Comrade Guru Das Chatterjee.

Guru Das originally lived in Purlia (West Bengal). His elder brother Ram Das Chatterjee was working in Coal mines in Nirsha, District Dhanbad, Jharkhand. Allegedly Guru Das was involved in some criminal case in Purlia and His Elder Brother brought him to Nirsha to keep himout of trouble.

In Nirsha Guru Das joined a Private colliery as a clerk on the bidding of his brother Ram Das. Around this time the coal mines were nationalized and Guru Das and His brother Ram Das became employees of Eastern Coalfields Limited a Government of India concern as Clerks.

Guru Das was finally posted in ECL Mugma area office as accounts clerk incharge of issuing Cheques. During this period he became involved with Political Activities. In those days Kripa Shankar Chatterjee was the Member of Legislative assembly of the Erstwhile undivided Bihar state.

Threatned by Guru Das's growing popularity K. S. Chatterjee implicated Guru Das in "The Gopal Bauri Murder case." Gopat Bauri was a low level MCC political worker. That was a big mistake on K. S. Chatterjee's part. Arrested and put in jail for a crime that he did not commit Guru Das was thrust into the arena of politics. Out on bail Guru Das neglected his secure job and went into full time politics.

He defeated K. S. Chatterjee in election to the Vidhan Sabha of the state of Bihar. K. S. Chatterjee never recovered from this political blow and was side lined from Nirsha Politics.

As a young MLA Guru Das was active. He was an Internal Supporter of Lallu Prasad Yadav the then Chief Minister of Bihar. In this respect he actually voted against Jharkhand separation on three occasions. He was active in the trade union front in Nirsha his word was final in nearly all coal mines and industries. The workers and poor low caste persons supported him unfailingly.

Now Narmedeshwar Singh was an active supporter of K. S. Chatterjee even in the diminished political power of K. S. Chatterjee. This was the main cause of friction of Narmedeshwar Singh and Guru Das Chatterjee.

Narmedeshwar Singh took out a Petroleum Outlet license in the name of a benamdar Kishkoo a tribal youth. This petroleum outlet was in Belchori, GT road Nirsha. It was most successful and became the largest outlet in the area.

Kishkoo wanted control of the pump nominally allotted to him but run and managed by Narmedeshwar Singh. For this Kishkoo approached Guru Das. Immediately Guru Das approached the District Magistrate of Dhanbad in this matter. After inquiry the D M sent an armed force to Belchori and forcefully evicted Narmedeshwar Singh and handed over control of the pump to Kishkoo. Kishkoo failed to run the pump miserably and the flourishing pump closed down.

This was the final provocation in the feud between Guru Das and Narmedeshwar Singh.

The events leading up to the final murder of Guru Das remains controversial but after the conviction of the Son of Narmedeshwar Singh Shiv Shankar Singh and staff Umesh Singh some light was shed on the events surrounding the murder.

Narmedhewar Singh is called "the Coal Mafia" because he allegedly breaks laws designed to protect the Government coal monopoly in India. He is not a mafia boss as understood by the rest of the world. In this respect he has about 100 criminal cases filed against him in court. In one of such cases Narmedeshwar Singh was remanded to jail and his coal business was being run by his four sons. This set the stage for the murder of Com Guru Das Chatterji MLA. During this period leading to Guru Das assassination Narmedeshwar Singh was in Dhanbad Jail.

On of Narmedheswar Singh sons Shiv Shankar Singh was attending Chief Judicial Magistrate court In Dhanbad where he saw Guru Das Chatterjee and some supporters in front of the court.

Shiv Shankar Singh allegedly walked up to Guru Das Chatterjee and put forward a peace proposal of 'Live and let Live'. But allegedly Guru Das Chatterjee took it otherwise and not only refused the proposal but slapped Shiv Shankar in front of everybody. This incident was suppressed in the court case as per Indian legal traditions. Smarting under the humiliation Shiv Shankar decided to murder Guru Das.

A few weeks later Guru Das was again attending court. He was on a motorcycle of a supporter. Around 1200 hours Mr Upender Singh a prominent union leader of Nirsha but of a different Political Party was returning from Dhanbad court to Nirsha a Distance of 30 kilometers by car. He offered a lift to Guru Das. Guru Das said that he would be delayed and asked Upender Singh to go. This proved to be costly. Shiv Shankar was waiting in ambush about mid way with a manager of his business Umesh Singh.

Guru Das left Dhanbad court around 1.00 PM by a supporters Motorbike. Both the alleged assassins were on a motor cycle and they were able to corner Guru Das near Deoli G T Road. Shiv Shankar allegedly fired the fatal shots though some claim Umesh Singh fired the shots. Guru Das died on the spot. His companion was set free. This person became the prime witness in this case.

THE AFTERMATH.

The assassination of Guru Das Chatterjee sent shock waves through the political class and the society of Nirsha. Not only he was a popular MLA but also perceived as a honest person and a great supporter of the downtrodden. The spot of the assasination became a centre of public discontent. A demand was raised by he thousands of mourning public that the then Chief Minister of Bihar Lalu Yadav visit the site and promise action. But eventually after three days of the G R road jam the agitation was lifted on assurance of the senior Govt. officials.

Eventually Shiv Shankar and Umesh Singh were arrested and convicted at the sessions court of Dhanbad for the Murder. The High court was pleased to order hanging of Shiv Shankar but the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to Life imprisonment.

The by election held after the assasination saw the introduction of the Son Arup Chatterjee into politics. Arup was an Officer of the Thapar House of Industrialists. He was elected as MLA with the sympathy wave defeating Susanto Sengupta; Forward Block candidate.

To say that Narmedeshwar Singh was devastated by this crime is to grossly overstate the facts. His business still runs with no opposition from Arup. He did lose a son to life imprisonment but was able to recoup fast and rebuild his business empire.

This murder was also preceded and followed by many Political Assassinations. Though now silent, underneath the surface, tension still reigns.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bemelmesre (talk • contribs) 05:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC) 

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Marxist Co-ordination Committee. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041102225636/http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/20000416/ifr16016.html to http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/20000416/ifr16016.html
• Added {{dead link}} tag to http://empoweringindia.com/new/knowyourcandidates.aspx?eid=166

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:47, 4 June 2017 (UTC)