Barrackpore BJP MP Arjun Singh on Sunday received serious head injuries as fresh clashes broke out between the ruling Trinamool Congress
and the BJP in Bhatpara-Jagatdal-Shyamnagar belt of North 24 Parganas.
All hell broke loose in Barrackpore zone even as both sides fought with bombs and brickbats, thus forcing
police to lathicharge the rampaging mob from both sides trying to attack and capture each other’s party offices.
Things reached to such a pass that Barrackpore Commissioner of Police, Manoj Verma, had to resort to fire in the air from his personal pistol late on Sunday noon, sources said even as Singh, who received a fractured skull, told reporters that the he was selectively targeted and beaten up by the Police Commissioner.
Reports said that the skirmish started near Feeder Road at Shyamnagar from where
violence spread like wild fire
to other.
Clashes started after the BJP MP who had come to meet his party workers following reports of clashes between the two parties was gheraoed and attacked by the ruling party men. “They not only smashed my car but attacked my men and me. When we started a protest demonstration against this unprovoked violence the police commissioner resorted to lathi-charge and he personally hit me with a lathi on my head,” Singh himself considered to be a local strongman said.
The saffron MP had been a four-time TMC MLA from Bhatpara and switched over to the BJP just before the general elections only to defeat sitting Trinamool MP Dinesh Trivedi.
The two sides had engaged each other in a bloody turf war ever since the central forces left the area after the elections. Half a dozen people have been
killed and many houses have been burnt in the past three or four months.
A temporary truce had been arrived at a couple of months ago after Verma took charge as the new CP but things erupted once again on Sunday as the area witnessed continued bombing and gun fights since Sunday morning.
“No one can organise a democratic movement in Bengal. There is no scope for the Opposition parties to carry out their programmes as the TMC will not let them do so,” Singh said adding while his party men were attacked by the TMC goons in presence of police the CP personally beat him up.