Incident was compared to Jallianwala Bagh massacre
KOLKATA: On the fateful day of July 21, 1993, the Youth Congress under the leadership of its then president Mamata Banerjee had organised a march to Writers’ Buildings demanding that without voters’ identity cards, no election should be held.
Ten processions converged near Brabourne Road where a makeshift podium had been built. The roads leading to the Writers’ Building soon converted into a sea of people. Shortly after Mamata Banerjee, Saugata Roy, Dilip Mazumdar left the podium it collapsed causing panic among the party workers who started running towards Dharmatala.
Unable to control the mob, the police resorted to a lathicharge, burst tear gas shells and then open fired killing 13 Youth Congress supporters. More than 100 supporters got injured and were admitted to various state-run hospitals. 13 supporters were killed. From July 21, 1994, Mamata Banerjee along with Congress leaders used to gather in front of Victoria House and garlanded the makeshift Martyrs’ Column.
After Banerjee set up Trinamool Congress in 1998, every year Martyrs’ Day is observed at Dharmatala.
After becoming the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Banerjee set up the one-man inquiry into the 1993 police firing. As reported, the one-man commission, describing the incident as “worse than the Jallianwala Bagh massacre”, in its report had said that the control room officers were “vicariously responsible” and “overacted to please their political bosses”.
Every year, on the eve of July 21, Banerjee visits the area of the rally to see the last-minute arrangements. Initially, party workers and sympathizers who used to come to attend the meeting from the districts spent the night at Howrah and Sealdah stations.
After Trinamool came to power, the support base of the party went up and more party supporters from the districts started coming to attend the rally. Most of the supporters used to come from South Bengal districts. This is for the first time a large number of party workers are coming from North Bengal districts too.
More than100 supporters were hurt, 13 were killed