In what could indicate an apparent message to the police brass on what to do about Wednesday’s attack by Trinamool Congress workers on senior PSU officials at Government-owned Burn Standard Company limited in Howrah, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said quoting her “sources” that no incident of assault had taken place.
Speaking to the media, Banerjee said she had “cross-checked with three sources and found that there was no incident of manhandling but only heated arguments between two sides,” leading the Opposition parties to wonder how the police would now take action against the assailants led by local municipal councilors belonging to Trinamool Congress when the Chief Minister publicly denies such an attack.
Such a stand by the Chief Minister would further bring down the investment graph of Bengal, said industrialist State BJP president Rahul Sinha.
State Opposition leader Suryakanto Mishra said the Chief Minister was stoking compensations in industrial areas in the name of labour struggle.
“No industry will come to Bengal as long as this Government is in power. This will have a cascading effect on job scenario which will again trigger crime” said CPI(M)’s Md Salim.
“livelihood of the workers have also to be taken into the account before taking any action” Banerjee said alleging the management had earlier retrenched 175 casual workers leading to a “small unrest” which brought some labour leaders to talk things out with the management. “There were no assault and manhandling” she said.
The attack took place a day after members of Siksha Bandhu, the Trinamool arm of non-teaching staff association raided the prestigious Kalyani University campus and assaulted senior officials while no police men intervened despite repeated SoS sent to the district and police administration.
Four people were arrested only after a go-ahead was given by the Home Department on next day.
As Burn Standard management declared suspension of work in response to the Wednesday’s attacks, Banerjee deputed chief secretary Sanjoy Mitra is ready to open dialogues with the company MD.
The two senior officers assaulted on Wednesday were senior general manager Shantanu Sarkar and DGM Debashasis Bhattacharya. The workers were retrenched because the wagon rates had come down.