Kolkata, August 20
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee today gave a 15-day ultimatum to senior CPM Politburo member Harkishen Singh Surjeet asking him to publicly apologise for making “false and fabricated charges” against her that she had been masterminding riots in Kolkata after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.

Otherwise, she warned, she would file a criminal suit against him in the Calcutta High Court. She would also file a defamation suit against him claiming damages.

Her counsel Ajit Kumar Panja, who is a former Union Minister, has been now busy in finalising the legal formalities for filing petitions in the high court against the CPM leader.

While recalling his nightmarish days during the 1984 riots in Delhi, Mr Surjeet acknowledged in writing that the then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had prevented the outbreak of any such disturbances in the state, though a firebrand woman leader (hinting at Mamata Banerjee) and several other Congress workers were then trying a create a “mayhem” against the Sikhs in Kolkata.

Mr Surjeet’s writing was published in the current issue of the CPM’s mouthpiece, People’s Democracy.