In '70, a bullet missed him by a whisker

PATNA: Had it not been for a CPM sympathiser who took an assassin’s bullet, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu, who passed away in Kolkata on Sunday,

The life-threatening attack on the CPM patriarch took place on March 31, 1970, at the Patna railway station as he got down from the Delhi Express train. A shot was fired no sooner CPM workers gathered around the compartment to welcome Basu. A CPM worker called Ali Iman, who had just then stepped forward to shake hands with the then deputy CM of Bengal, got hit by the bullet and died on the spot.

‘‘The incident shocked Basu and the bouquets he was holding fell from his hands,’’ recalled CPM activist P K Shukla. Shukla wasn’t present at Patna Junction that day but he attended a meeting addressed by Basu later the same day.

 

Courtsey : The Times of India , Patna