THREE miscreants gunned down Dr Sailen Das, CPI (M) chairman of the Dum Dum municipality in north 24 Parganas on the morning of August 12 in front of his residence. Das died shortly after being rushed to the nearest hospital. He was 72.

In a spontaneous gesture of protest, public life came to a standstill in the Dum Dum area throughout the day. A statewide protest day was organised on August 14 when rallies, meetings, and marches condemned the heinous murder of Dr Das.

State secretary of the CPI (M) Anil Biswas, Left Front chairman, Biman Basu, and Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee along with the state leadership of the CPI (M) expressed their shock and anguish at the murder of Dr Das. An official inquiry under the aegis of the CID of the state police has been ordered into the incident.

Artistes and intellectuals mourned Dr Das’s death at a crowded function held in front of the Rabindra Sadan on August 15 where his body had lain in state earlier on August 14 before its final journey to the R G Kar college (via his residence in Dum Dum), for he had chosen to donate his bodily remains for medical research.

Born in 1929 in Dacca in erstwhile East Pakistan, Dr Sailen Das became involved with the communist movement in 1949. He took his bachelor’s degree in medical science from the R G Kar medical college in Kolkata. A member of the Communist Party from 1960, Dr Das was elected MLA from the Rajarhat constituency in 1967. He served as a commissioner of the Dum

Dum municipality during the same period. He was elected chairman of the Dum Dum municipality in 1999.

A well-known exponent of Rabindrasangeet, Dr Sailen Das was deeply involved with the Bengal Sangeet Academy from its inception. Dr Das leaves behind his wife, Kanan Das who is at present a CPI (M) commissioner of the Dum Dum municipality, and a son, Dr Ananyabrata Das who is an ophthalmologist and a noted singer. Dr Sailen Das lost his eldest son Biswajit in a road accident some years back.

Expressing deep shock at the murder of Dr Sailen Das, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee described the incident as most unfortunate but would maintain that there was no reason to believe that "the law-and-order situation has broken down in the state." He iterated that in matters of

implementing the policies of the Left Front government, "we retain our courage of conviction but we are never self-satisfied in any manner." No arrests could be made as we file this report although the police have detained a few persons for interrogation.

In the meanwhile, the state police have reportedly been edging closer to identifying the abductors of a shoe-making concern of the city and among the suspects taken into custody are persons who are allegedly linked to some leaders of the Trinamul Congress, it was disclosed. The person kidnapped had since returned to the city nursing bullet injuries. The police shall speak to him, too, as soon as he is released from the private nursing home where he is under treatment.

AT no level of education would the Bengal education system accept astrology as a curriculum however much the University Grants Commission (UGC) insists on it. The Bengal Left Front government’s higher education minister, Satya Sadhan Chakravarty, declared this at a convention held on August 11 in Kolkata. The convention was organised under the aegis of the Kolkata unit of the Bengal Vigyan Manch.

Chakravarty said that the BJP-run union government was trying its best to try and implement such programmes as had long been rejected by humans with the rise of scientific thinking. The union government harping on a theme of the ‘golden past’ would have everybody believe that everything that had happened in the past was good and should be revived. This was an outlook steeped in a counter-progressive frame of mind, asserted Chakravarty. He also alluded to the attempt being made by the NDA government to put a brake on scientific learning to make the country intellectually dependent on the so-called developed nations.

Former chairman of UGC, Professor Yash Pal said that in place of funding original research work in science and humanities, the present UGC was willing to earmark several crores of rupees in making astrology a part of the college and university curricula.

Dr Pushpa Bhargava, former director of the center for cellular and molecular biology (CCMB) said that since there was a marked similarity in the general genetic structure of humans and animals, the proponents for astrology might well start to prepare horoscope for the latter as well. Dr Bhargava also enumerated a number of subjects that were little more than pseudo-sciences and in which interest was being evinced by the NDA union government.

The convention, which was held at the centenary hall of Kolkata university, had a large number of students and teachers in attendance.