There was an attempt on the life of a senior Minister in Mamata Banerjee’s Cabinet last week. The State Food Minister Jyoti Priya Mullick was nearly run over by an SUV while he was returning to his Salt lake residence from his daily morning, he said.
An FIR has been lodged at the Bidhannagar Police Station.
When contacted the Minister said he suspected the hands of cow smugglers who wanted to teach him a lesson for playing an active role in checking cow smuggling.
“It seems that cow rackets have a hand in it” the Minister said adding “I was walking down the road when an olive-green SUV suddenly rushed at me with great speed. It was simply aiming at me and I would have been run over but for the last-minute alertness,” the Minister said.
“I immediately leapt at the sidewalk and saved myself while the vehicle rushed past me,” he said adding “this is the same vehicle which had been towing me for the past a few days, though I did not pay much attention to that.”
Security around the Minister has been beefed up, police said adding the vehicle was an old one and frantic search for it is on.
Mullick had of late taken pro-active role in stopping trans-border smuggling of cows which had hit the vested interest in a big way, sources said. “Yes I have taken a role in stopping cow smuggling because I think no national asset should go out of the country.”
Bengal has been a focal point of cow smuggling across the border to Bangladesh with operators smuggling trucks loads of cattle from Bengal as well as neighbouring and far off States to Bangladesh.