In what tended to burst right in the face of the Mamata Banerjee Government a night preceding its much-bandied global business summit another man in uniform was shot dead by miscreants at Kapaseria off Nandigram and industrial town of Haldia in East Midnapore district.
The constable was shot through his ears by miscreants who fired and threw bombs at a police patrol vehicle when they were challenged by the cops late on Thursday night, sources said. The miscreants were yet to be arrested.
The incident comes a few months ahead of the Assembly elections. The Thursday’s incident came barely a week after the Public Prosecutor of Birbhum district, petitioned a district court, to discharge 22 accused persons belonging to the Trinamool Congress and were charge-sheeted for bombing a police sub-inspector to death last year.
The PP who is appointed by the Government to fight in favour of the State said he had investigated the case and found that the accused were innocent. This, regardless of the fact that only the police is authorised to investigate a case.
Earlier an ASI was shot dead by alleged goons of a Trinamool Congress leader at Garden Reach in Kolkata where he had gone to man a college election. Another policeman was killed last year in Coochbehar district by reported supporters of the ruling party. In none of these cases the accused had been punished.
The Thursday’s incident is also one among numerous attacks on the police force in the past few years. A deputy SP said requesting anonymity that “there is a tremendous foment in the subaltern ranks as cops after cops are being killed and police stations are attacked by the members of a particular party with impunity.”
Incidentally a violent mob of a communal charged people at Sujapur-Kaliachak in Malda district last Sunday attacked police and BSF vehicles and burnt down a local police station forcing the officials to flee the place.
Meanwhile, the State BJP on Friday demanded an impartial probe by a Central agency into the Malda incident.