The border town of Kaliaganj in North Bengal where a section of the locals had been agitating against police inaction in an alleged rape-and-murder case once again exploded on Tuesday when the local police station was put on fire allegedly by the members of Adivasi and Rajbangshi communities reducing more than two dozen vehicles including two-wheelers to ashes.
The Thana Gherao programme organised by the agitators in protest against alleged police inaction suddenly turned violent and the mob from all sides attacked the police station. Several rounds of lath-charge and bursting tear gas shells had failed to bring things under control, when reports last came in well past sundown.
The angry agitators who had fought pitched battle with the police with brickbats and had even attacked the media and civilian vehicles passing the area were still camping in the vicinity, sources said adding the mob had torched tomes of documents, furniture and vehicles and even damaged the road-side kiosks.
While the ruling Trinamool Congress blamed the BJP and the Left for inciting the locals from behind State Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari referred to the Tuesday’s incident as an ideal case of the collapsed law and order situation in the State before demanding immediate deployment of central forces.
The State has hardly seen a similar attack on any police station in the recent past when an entire police station of a sub-division was literally vandalized and set on fire.
“Several of our officials have been injured in the attack … we did not resist the attack because had we done so then our family quarters too could have been raided by them,” a police officer said requesting anonymity.
Ruling Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that the attack was a handiwork of the opposition parties.
“The BJP has no root in the State … they have been defeated in the Assembly elections and so they are trying to trouble the State Government either by blocking central funds or by creating such mischief,” Ghosh said adding, “the entire postmortem of the girl was video-graphed and there was no external injuries or for that matter sign of sexual assault found on the body of the deceased and here the opposition are trying to create an issue because the panchayat elections are near.”
Asking why the NCPCR teams do not visit places like Unnao or Hathrasor for that matter why the perpetrators of rape during Gujarat riots were released, he said that the commotion was the handiwork of the opposition parties.
Adhikari hit back the saying, “The Kaliaganj incident is a perfect example of law and order collapse … on one hand the administration is trying to hush up the matter by preparing false reports and on the other the police fail miserably to protect a police station … if they cannot save their own police station how will they be able to ensure free and fair elections during the panchayat polls … there is a need for central forces because the law and order has completely broken down.”
The commotion started on Saturday after the body of a minor girl was fished out of a pond on April 21. While locals alleged that it was a case of rape and murder the police prima facie found that the victim had committed suicide claiming a bottle of poison had been found from the banks of the canal where her body was found.
Speaking to reporters on the weekend, Superintendent of Police Md Sana Akhtar had said, “We have received the post-mortem report today. Given the importance of the case we had requested a three-member medical board of senior doctors and after that post-mortem was done. The family members of the victim were also there. The entire process has been video-graphed. According to the initial post-mortem report, thecause of death ‘was due to the ingestion of poisonous substances’ as noted.”
Things took an ugly turn with political intervention and the police had to fire tear gas shells on angry crowds on Saturday.
The two intervening days when a team of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights visited the area saw intense war of words between the NCCPR and the State Commission with the two sides giving diverse versions of the story.
Meanwhile, the four Assistant Sub-Inspectors had been suspended after video footage showed them dragging away the body of the dead girl after snatching it from the angry crowd on Saturday.