Mystery death of Bengal officer who exposed NREG fraud

On April 8, according to police records obtained by The Sunday Express, the body of Kallol Sur was found hanging from the ceiling fan of his two-room house adjoining the BDO complex at Daspur II in West Midnapur district. The death was called a suicide by local officials but Sur’s 72-year-old father Dilip Sur is knocking on all doors asking for a probe.

Yesterday, he met Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb claiming his son had told him about “immense political pressure” he was under following the complaints he filed. The father has alleged that the local administration didn’t hand over his son’s body to him but “hurriedly cremated it.” The post-mortem report, too, hasn’t been given to the father.

What led to his death isn’t clear but police records, FIRs and official complaints obtained by The Sunday Express make it clear that Sur brought several powerful local leaders — of both the CPM and the Trinamool — under the scanner for alleged corruption in a slew of schemes, including NREGA, flood relief and illegal felling of trees.

• On January 6 this year, three months into his job, Sur filed an FIR with the Daspur police station with the police when 10 poor villagers in Daspur Block - II complained that they had not got their wages as per the NREGA. They alleged they received payments for just two days while the job supervisor, appointed by the Panchayat Pradhan, got them to sign the muster roll for seven days. After his probe, Sur complained: “The Pradhan of Nischintapur is held responsible for the offence equally as the said job supervisor forced the paymaster to pay less than what was stated in the muster roll.”

• Sur’s FIR named CPM panchayat pradhan Kartik Mondal and job supervisor Ajoy Bhowmik, also a local CPM leader.

• Both were arrested and when the case reached the magistrate’s court, the Panchayat Pradhan and the job supervisor were fined Rs 5,000. The court ordered the BDO to collect the fine and distribute it among the ten “aggrieved labourers.”

• Local CPM leaders, angry at the BDO’s “audacity,”...