Kolkata: Amid reports of frequent political violence in West Bengal, former Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly Thursday dubbed the situation in the state as worse than the Emergency days with "people being helpless like never before".
"We have never comes across a situation that prevails in West Bengal. I remember the emergency days, but even in those days we hadn't seen the kind of violence that is going on now," Ganguly said during an event here.
Ganguly, along with several other eminent people including former Maoist leader Ashim Chatterjee, floated the 'Save Democracy Forum'.
"During the emergency, there were attempts to pressurize the opposition, but what is happening today.... I can't remember the common man being so helpless in Bengal," added Ganguly, who is also a former chairperson of the state's Human Rights Commission.
Ganguly's comments come at a time when Bengal has been hitting the headlines for the Oct 2 Burdwan blast, in which terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh is purportedly involved, as well as political violence claiming several lives in Birbhum and South 24 Parganas districts.
A fierce critic of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime, Ganguly accused the state government of ignoring warnings about the Burdwan blast.