| Sainbari Murder | |
| Location: | Bardhaman, West Bengal, India |
| Date: | 17 March 1970 |
| Time: | 7:30 a.m. |
| Target: | Sain Family |
| Type: | Political murder (alleged) |
| Victims: | Pranab Kumar Sain, Malay Kumar Sain and Jitendranath Rai |
| Perps: | Communist Party of India (Marxist) |
| Assailants: | Benoy Krishna Konar, Anil Basu, Nirupam Sen and Amal Halder |
The Sainbari Murder[1] occurred on March 17, 1970, in the house of the Sain family in Bardhaman, West Bengal, India, where three people were killed and their blood was forced to be eaten with rice by their mother. Later, it was mentioned as one of the most notorious murder incidents in India.[2] [3]
The newspaper incident report puts the date of the incident at 17 March 1970. The Sain brothers were members of a family with strong allegiance towards the Indian National Congress. Naba Kumar Sain — the eldest son of the family — was allegedly blinded and his eyes gouged out while his younger brothers, Malay and Pranab, were allegedly hacked to death in front of the watching family members by the perpetrators. Naba Kumar was killed a year later. The entire incident was done by CPI(M) members because of the family's support towards Indian National Congress[4] and the victims' refusal to switch allegiance to the CPI(M).[5] A private tutor, Jitendranath Rai, who had come to teach the kids in the family was hacked to death as well. Later, the mother of the Sain brothers was forced to eat rice smeared with the blood of her sons. One of the daughters-in-law of the family, Rekha Rani, now around 75 years old, recounted the horrors of the incident in an interview with Indian Express. She said, - she added.[6]
Swarnalata Josh, the daughter of the Sain family, also witnessed the atrocities of that day. The attack took place on the day of Swarnalata's one-month-old son Amrit Kumar Josh's Shashthi ritual. The frantic attackers of the CPI(M) also wanted to throw the newborn baby into the fire. Later, with the help of the locals, the newborn was saved.
The newborn of that day, now 51-year-old, Amrit Kumar Josh said in a 2011 interview with India's leading daily The Times of India:
The atrocity of the incident was so shocking that it eclipsed other acts of monstrosity that occurred on 17 March 1970. Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India, had visited the house in the heart of Bardhaman town to console the bereaved.[7] The shock made the mother lose her mental balance and state from which she never recovered till her death a decade later. Those communist cadres who perpetrated this violence may have gone on to become ministers and MPs under the Left-Front government and were never brought to book, as CPI(M) leaders Benoy Konar, Anil Basu, Nirupam Sen (former State Minister of Commerce and Industries) and Amal Halder were alleged by the defense to be directly involved in the Sainbari murder case.[6] [8] When the Trinamool government formed a commission in 2011 to probe the incident, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said "It's politics of vendetta."[9]