Is Mamata’s Bengal spinning out of controlIJ
The violence in West Bengal's Birbhum district late last week is only the latest in a long line of such instances that have not only become the norm under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's watch but have aggravated in the run-up to the Assembly election later this year. When Ms Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress swept to power in 2011, some churning at the ground level, where the left parties had held sway for three decades, was expected. Yet, there can be no explanation or excuse for the near-collapse of the law and order in the State, which is fast becoming a haven for all sorts of criminal networks and even Islamist terror groups that pose a threat to national security. Take, for example, the current situation in Birbhum last week's violence, wherein entire villages came under attack, was the result of a turf war between two Trinamool Congress strongmen, Messrs Gadadhar Hazra and Kajal Sheikh, who wanted to increase their area of influence before the party leadership begins distributing tickets for the Assembly poll. Mr Hazra is the local MlA while Mr Sheikh owes allegiance to district president and party heavyweight Anubrata Mandal. The latter gained notoriety in 2013 when he publicly called upon his supporters to target police personnel and rivals.
In fact, police personnel and establishments have routinely come under attack across Bengal in the past two years, prompting the Union Minister for Home Affairs to remark that the law and order in the State was so bad that even police personnel feared for their life in July 2014, an Inspector was killed in Birbhum's Dubrajpur panchayat when a bomb was hurled at him, while in February 2013, a Sub-inspector was shot dead outside a Kolkata college when clashes erupted during the filing of nominations for a campus election. In the second case, a Trinamool Congress Councillor and Borough Chair has been charged as the mastermind. On January 16, a police station in the Mayureswar area of Birbhum district was ransacked and set on fire, after a truck, reportedly carrying illegally mined sand and being chased by the police, ran over a mason. That same day, a policeman was assaulted while probing the murder of a local Trinamool Congress worker allegedly involved with the coal mafia in Birbhum's Kankartala area. On January 22, two people were killed and one person injured when crude bombs stockpiled at their house exploded also in Birbhum district. Notably, one of the deceased was a Trinamool Congress worker and the prime accused in the murder of another a Trinamool Congress worker. That murder was the result of an intra-party power struggle. And this is just a list of ‘minor incidents' which does not even include the likes of 2014 blasts in Khagragarh, Burdwan district (on which the National Investigation Agency is now likely to request the Government for a dedicated court to hear the case) or the more recent massive street protest that turned violent in Kaliachak, Malda.