Mamata Banerjee on Friday put an official stamp on her Thursday’s ad hoc remarks that the bloody turf war in Birbhum was all State-managed by the Opposition and media.
The ongoing hostilities shown on the televisions were all “old footages”, she told the State Assembly saying the local police reports perforated the Opposition claims that fresh violence had broken out at Parui, Sattor, Makhra, Belpata, Nanoor, Jadavpur and other villages forcing people to flee in hordes.
“There is no violence, only old footages fed to the media and shown on the television to malign the Government,” Banerjee thundered inside the House much the way she had told on Thursday that all “so-called violence is stage-managed drama played by the Opposition and a section of the media.”
Notwithstanding the Chief Minister’s remarks, the hospitals continued to get flooded by victims of attacks from both sides and the Trinamool’s own leaders in Birbhum confined themselves behind police protection.
Fresh violence between the Trinamool and BJP had erupted over the past few days in the far-flung areas of Parui, Sattor and other police stations in Birbhum district leaving more than a dozen injured and many houses reduced to ashes even as musketeers from both sides engaged each other with bullets and bombs. The police remained a mute spectator giving protection to local Trinamool leaders like Sk Mustafa named in a host of murder cases like the one at Makhra-Chowmandalpur village where three men were bombed to death late last year.
National Women’s Commission visited Sattor last year when a woman BJP supporter was allegedly abducted in the dead of night by senior police officers and Trinamool gangsters who then took her to a jungle and subjected her to inhuman torture.
“The Government is on a denial mode rejecting all claims made by the BJP while the poor people are suffering in Birbhum,” Samik Bhattacharya, the sole saffron MlA in the State Assembly said. Congress’s Abdul Mannan iterated, “There is no second person who can match Mamata Banerjee in manufacturing lies. So what she has told the Assembly should be discounted as yet another white lie peddled by her.”
Meanwhile, the police continued to remain insensitive in West Midnapore where the team of BJP leaders led by Rupa Ganguli and Jayprakash Majumdar were refused entry into the Pingla village where 12 people had died early this month when bombs stock-piled in an unlicensed explosive factory went off. The Chief Minister later told the media that it was an accidental fire in an illegal fire cracker factory.
The police turned away the BJP leaders who were visiting the area following allegations that all evidence of bomb blasts were being removed by the police. National Investigatin Agency was likely to visit the area to conduct fresh investigation.