Long-time West Bengal finance minister and CPI(M) leader Ashok Mitra criticized the government and his party, accusing the party's leadership of hubris and calling the CPI(M) "a wide-open field of flatterers and court jesters" dominated by "anti-socials". According to an "Indian Express" editorial, the party machinery had become the "sword arm of an industrialization policy that involves settling complicated property rights issues." Some of the men who fired at the villagers but were not police officers were later caught by security forces were claimed (by TMC) to be working for the CPI(M).