A day after a thousand-strong mob allegedly led by local Trinamool Congress leader ransacked a police station setting afire properties worth lakhs and beat up on-duty officers, the police on Sunday arrested seven people for inciting violence and arsoning.
local municipal chairman and Trinamool leader Chanchal Garai was already picked up on Saturday night in connection with the case following prompt directives coming from State Secretariat Nabanna, sources said.
With Sunday’s arrest the total number of people taking in police custody went up to 18 district SP Kunal Agarwal said adding the police were looking into the case as to what led to the mob violence when an earlier issue which reportedly had ignited the violence had already been sorted out.
While Birbhum district Trinamool president Anubrata Mondal who controls Ausgram TMC unit blamed the CPI(M) for the violence the opposition left said infighting between two groups in the ruling party had led to the ruling party goons attacking the police station.
Even the local Trinamool MlA Abhedananda Thunder alleged that Saturday’s incident was “masterminded” by CPI(M). However, locals requesting anonymity said, “the clash was a result of an infighting between groups led by the MlA and the local municipal councilor Chanchal Garai.”
The immediate trigger behind Saturday’s violence was an alleged “illegal construction” being carried out by a local Trinamool man and a civic volunteer inside a local school premises. When the locals raised the issue with the Ausgram Police Station they were allegedly shoed away by the police leading to the subsequent mob fury.
A large contingent of police force including RAF and Robot cops were deployed in the area even as the village looked a deserted look with most people keeping indoors on Sunday.
“We can’t make guesses on the real impact of the violence and subsequent police raids as today is Sunday. If things resemble a bandh-like situation even tomorrow then we will have to think of different strategy,” a senior district official said.
Ausgram violence is one the recent series of such incidents where the villagers attacked police. Bhangar a block in South 24 Parganas nearer Kolkata is a glaring case in point where thousands of villagers clashed with the police burning down and dumping into the village ponds at least a dozen police vans last week.
They were protesting against the forcible acquisition of land on which a National power grid had come up at the cost of about `3,500 crore. The Nandigram-like violence in which the villagers dug roads and damaged Government properties literally forced the Government to call off the power grid project.
Curiously Bhangar continues to remain tense and cut off from the rest of the State with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee given the taste of her own bitter pill that she prescribed-at Singur, Nandigram and lalgarh-as an opposition leader a decade ago.
Such was the ferocity of Saturday’s attack that the Thana in-charge was literally seen crying before the media after the violence. Similar attacks on police forces had been a common affair in Bengal in the past several years. At least half-a-dozen cops have been killed in attacks by ruling Trinamool goons in the State.