On 30th November, human skeletons were unearthed during the construction of a new house in the Ashoknagar area of the North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. The plot on which the construction was being done once belonged to the late Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Bijan Mukherjee. The labourers digging the foundation initially found two human skulls. As the digging continued, more skeletons emerged. The police were called, and the area was cordoned off.
After preliminary examination, the police said that the skeletons were quite old. However, the exact age of the skeletons will be ascertained after examination by forensic experts. The skeletons have been sent for forensic examination. Registry documents revealed that the plot was part of the land that belonged to Bijan Mukherjee and his family. After the partition of the land, the plot came to the current owners, who demolished the old structure and started a new construction.
A local, Ashish Mukherjee, told the media that the plot where human skeletons have surfaced belongs to his relatives. “My uncle Bijan Mukherjee’s house used to be here,” he said. His family added that they have been living in the area since before India’s independence. Ashish’s wife said that the house on the plot was closed since the death of her uncle-in-law and his wife in 2013. She added that sometimes the daughters of her uncle-in-law came and stayed there, but after the partition of the land, new construction began.
Commenting on the incident, Trinamool Congress MLA Narayan Goswami said that a skeleton was found under the bedroom floor of Bijan Mukherjee’s house in Kalyangarh, Ward No. 7, Ashoknagar. He said that Mukherjee’s name was once synonymous with terror in the Ashoknagar and Howrah areas. Goswami further said that in 2002, a decomposed body was recovered from a water tank in the area.
Human skeletons were found near CPI(M) leader’s house in 2011
Notably, in a similar incident, human skeletons were discovered near the house of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) leader and former West Bengal minister Sushanta Ghosh in West Midnapore district in June 2011. Ghosh and his two close aides were arrested by the police. An FIR was filed by a villager, Shyamal Acharya, claiming that one of the skeletons was of his father, Ajay Acharya, a TMC member. A DNA test of the skeletons confirmed that one skeleton was of Ajay Acharya, who had been missing since September 2002.
