The recent arrest of a deputy superintendent of police in the CBI, Special Crime Branch, has come as a shot in the arm for the CPI(M) in Bengal before the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. The CBI officer booked, Partha Sarathi Bose, happened to be one of the key investigators in at least half-a-dozen criminal cases in which important functionaries of the CPI(M) had been indicted. While Bose was caught accepting a bribe red-handed, the arrest comes as a welcome means for the party to cleanse its tarnished image in several politically sensitive cases.

The cases under investigation by the CBI — some of which had already been charge-sheeted — had far-reaching consequences. The CPI(M) in Bengal has, therefore, stepped up its legal cell and is about to launch a statewide campaign to highlight how “ the party had falsely been implicated by CBI officers whose very integrity was under clouds,” said senior party officers. Incidentally, Partha Sarathi Bose earlier boss in the CBI, A K Sahay, was similarly disgraced when a CBI team from Delhi raided his premises and unearthed assets alleged to be disproportionate to his income.

The cases being investigated by Bose includethe murder of Tapasi Malik in Singur in which a CPI(M) zonal committee secretary was arrested as the main accused. Bose was also associated with the recovery of a huge cache of arms and ammunition from a brick kiln in Nandigram along with 10 CPI(M) members. The arrest and seizure had done serious damage to the image of the party as it helped establish that much of the violence in Nandigram was being perpetrated by armed CPM party cadres who were brought in from other adjoining areas.

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