Kolkata, Nov 27 (IANS): Left Front chairman Biman Bose Wednesday deposed before a one-man inquiry commission set up to probe the July 21, 1993 police firing on Youth Congress workers who had laid siege to the state secretariat Writers' Buildings, which left 13 people dead.

Bose told the panel he was neither part of the government nor was he present in the city when the incident occurred.

He urged the panel to come up with facts about whether it was violence by those protesting that triggered the police firing or police had fired on its own volition.

"I was not a part of the state government. Journalists are aware that in 34 years of Left Front rule how many times I had visited the state secretariat. I was not present in the city at that time and came to know about the incident from newspapers," Bose told the media here.

Immediately after assuming power in May 2011, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government constituted the commission under Justice (retd.) Sushanta Chatterjee to ascertain who issued the order to police to open fire at the rally.

While Jyoti Basu was the chief minister at the time of the incident, Banerjee's predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was in charge of the police department. The Trinamool observes the day as "Martyr's Day".

Asked by the commission if he was aware of any incident where so many people were killed in police firing, Bose, also a Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member, spoke about the "1959 Food Movement" in West Bengal, during which 80 people were brutally killed during a baton-charge by police.

Comparing the twin incidents, Bose said that from newspaper reports, he came to know that "those killed in the 1959 incident were unarmed, but the participants in the Youth Congress rally were carrying arms including bombs".