Twenty years is an unconscionably long time to pronounce judgment on a murder ? or even a double murder. Even then, the Calcutta high court?s decision to sentence a sitting member of the legislative assembly to prison for life, for having led and incited a group to murder, with spectacular cruelty, two men in a village in South 24 Parganas in 1985, has somehow been reassuring. Nobody in the Kultoli area, where the murders took place, believed before this that Mr Prabodh Purkayet, the MLA from the Socialist Unity Centre of India, would ever be penalized. Yet a village full of people had reportedly seen him at the head of a murderous gang in broad daylight. Twenty years late though it is, it is still the first time that the Calcutta high court has convicted a sitting MLA of murder and sent him to prison. The judgment recalls, in these confusing times, that rather rusty principle: everyone is equal before the law.

This is looking on the positive side. Twenty years cannot, by any stretch of kindness, be considered a reasonable time taken to deliver a verdict. The son of one of the victims, now a young man of 21, does not remember his father. The murder was the result of political rivalry between the Congress and the SUCI. The murdered men belonged to the Congress, and members of their families have since shifted allegiance to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). From the very beginning, progress was slow, although at the time, that is, in 1985, the killings were perceived to be as shocking and bloody as the Sain murders. It took 13 years for the trial to come to an end in the lower court. Mr Purkayet and four others, who have been sentenced for life in the high court this time, had all been set free by the lower court. Now, with the six persons sentenced by the lower court earlier in the case, 11 people have been convicted. It is heartening that the families of the victims could convince the state of the injustice that they felt had been done, else it would not have been possible to pursue the case in the high court. The conclusion must be deeply satisfactory for everyone except the SUCI, which was, so far, stronger than the CPI(M) in the Kultoli area. This could be quite a big setback locally. The Congress and the CPI(M) must both be pleased. Justice has at last been done to the erstwhile supporters of one party, and to the present members of the other.