Adopting a pro-active approach, West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan on Thursday summoned Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh and asked the State government to take immediate steps on maintaining law and order and prevent violence.
Home secretary G D Gautama and DGP N Mukherjee were also present at the 30-minute meeting.
Mr. Gautama later told reporters at Writers’ Building that the Governor reviewed law and order and asked the government to immediately take steps to prevent recurrence of violence and concentrate more attention on maintaining law and order.
The Governor, shortly after suspected CPI(M) armed cadre gunned down seven villagers at Netai village in Lalgarh on January seven, had said it was a day of “sorrow and shame” for the State.
“No democracy can allow such violence: no civilised society can tolerate such wanton disregard for human lives and no State can accept such mindless discord,” he had said in a statement.
Mr. Narayanan was briefed about measures by the State to curb growing violence, Mr. Gautama said.
“The Governor cited no specific issues or incidents and held a general review of the law and order situation in the State,” he said.
The meeting came close on the heels of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s reply to Union Home minister P Chidamabaram’s letter on January seven “to reschedule all appointments and visit Delhi immediately“.
“We are trying to fix up two meetings with the Home Minister and Prime Minister between January 17 and 19,” the CM’s secretariat had said on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Chief Minister had said that he would be able to visit Delhi only in the third week of this month.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had also said that the killings and political clashes taking place in the State every day were “totally unacceptable”.
