Bengal
Surinder Koli, the prime accused in the infamous 2006 Nithari serial killings who was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2025, was found dead in Haridwar on September 18. The incident followed a national seminar in Visakhapatnam where senior jurists and media professionals scrutinized investigative lapses by the CBI and questioned the lack of media follow-up for the victims’ families.
In a startling turn of events, Surinder Koli, the prime accused in the 2006 Nithari serial killings who was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2025, was found dead inside his Haridwar tea stall on September 18. The incident closely follows a national seminar in Visakhapatnam where senior jurists and experts scrutinized the press and the CBI over systemic investigative failures that denied justice to victim families.
The Election Commission of India has frozen the Trinamool Congress name and ‘Flowers & Grass’ symbol for the October 6 bypolls, assigning separate interim designations to factions led by Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy. Amid an urgent Supreme Court challenge by the party supremo, an emerging Congress-Mamata alignment has prompted the resignation of Trinamool’s Nandigram nominee.
In a historic development for India’s public health sector, West Bengal has officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to implement the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY).
The West Bengal administration has ordered the transfer of 179 police personnel across various districts and units in a major administrative reshuffle. The move is aimed at strengthening law and order, improving administrative efficiency, and ensuring impartial policing across the state.
Amid a catastrophic post-election split within the TMC, former Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim stunned political observers by holding a 70-minute closed-door meeting with rebel LoP Ritabrata Banerjee. While Hakim pleaded for party unity, the meeting highlights a rapidly dissolving command structure.
West Bengal has deported 4,800 undocumented immigrants to Bangladesh over the past month, with 836 more awaiting removal. Highlighting a strict “detect, delete, deport” policy, CM Suvendu Adhikari also announced a statewide household verification survey and expedited border fencing.
In a seismic shift for West Bengal’s entertainment industry, heavy-handed political control over Tollygunge’s studiopara cracked on Thursday night, June 4, 2026, as Kolkata Police arrested prominent Trinamool Congress leader Swarup Biswas. Once considered an untouchable sovereign over Tollywood’s studio floor logistics, the former president of the Federation of Cine Technicians & Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) was picked up by New Alipore police from his Sahapur Colony residence. His arrest follows an explicit FIR lodged by a 42-year-old local makeup artist who detailed a toxic corporate “syndicate raj.” The complainant alleged that after being blacklisted and denied work for two years, she was pressured by Biswas to pay cash bribes and make sexual compromises at the Suruchi Sangha club premises to secure employment. When she refused, she was met with violent death threats. Booked under rigorous provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for sexual harassment and extortion alongside the Arms Act, Biswas’s arrest sparked massive street celebrations outside the police station. Concurrently, investigators at Lalbazar are opening wider lines of inquiry connecting Swarup and his brother, former sports minister Aroop Biswas, to an alleged ₹22-lakh extortion and ticket black-marketing racket tied to Lionel Messi’s high-profile India tour event.
In a move set to redefine the political landscape of rural West Bengal, newly appointed Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Dilip Ghosh has signaled a comprehensive review of panchayat delimitation across the state. The announcement marks a significant administrative shift following the recent change of guard in West Bengal, with the new administration targeting long-standing discrepancies in local governance structures.
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