Bengal BJP spokesperson and former MLA Samik Bhattacharya was on Tuesday physically assaulted and his car literally smashed by alleged Trinamool Congress supporters while he was going to join a party meeting at Diamond Harbour some 50 km south of Kolkata.
The attack came close on the heels of the murder of BJP Councillor Manish Shukla demise at Titagarh in North 24 Parganas. Two persons were arrested in the case.
“I was going to Diamond Harbour to attend a party meeting. Suddenly my vehicle was stopped by a crowd of 100-150 people shouting anti-BJP slogans. They smashed the windshields of my car, pulled me out, threw me on the ground, kicked me, rained blows on me,” Bhattacharya whose clothes were tattered in the scuffle said.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh too was black-flagged even as South 24 Parganas district TMC leader Shaukat Molla said the saffron leaders would face more attacks if they continued with dirty politics.
Molla a party strongman said “if the BJP leaders do not stop the dirty politics they are playing then the people will now resort to more such attacks and they will break their legs… That party is playing the politics of hatred throughout India … like what they did in Hathras and other places. They are setting one castes and communities against each the other. People will see through this dirty game.”
Incidentally the attack came a day after Dilip Ghosh made a controversial statement saying Bengal was fast turning into a “mafia raj like Bihar and UP” providing the desired ammo to the Trinamool Congress which quickly got back wondering whether Ghosh genuinely meant that the BJP ruled states were in the grip of mafia raj.
Taking a dig at Ghosh TMC leader Rahul Chakrabarty said “his own comments are a proof of what it is like in UP and Bihar… he has himself conceded that these two states are in the grip of mafia raj.”
Meanwhile, the CID arrested two accused Md Khurram and Sk Gulab in connection of Shukla’s murder on grounds that the former nourished a grudge against the deceased as his hands were suspected in the murder of Khurram’s father a few years ago. Barrackpore BJP MP Arjun Singh claimed that Khurram was close to Trinamool Congress leader and former MLA Madan Mitra.
Shukla’s father also named two Trinamool Congress leaders and municipal administrators of Titagarh and Barrackpore Prashanta Chowdhury and Uttam Das in the FIR. However the duo denied their involvement in the incident.
Shukla considered a right-hand man of Singh was murdered on Sunday evening. He received 14 bullet injuries out of which 9 were planted inside his body including his head and neck. He was shot with a semi-automatic gun, police told the court which granted 14-day police custody to the accused.
Earlier a BJP delegation led by party leader Kailash Vijaybargiya met Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar at the Raj Bhavan demanding CBI inquiry into Shukla's death.