The Bengal Government has banned using mobile phones by visitors and the police staff, inside the residential premises of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Visitors and policemen on duty will also not be allowed to use their phones at State secretariat Nabanna which houses the Chief Minister’s office.
There was no confirmation as yet on whether the journalists too will have deposit their cellphones before entering these two high security places.
The decision was taken in a high-level meeting attended by Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi, Home Secretary BP Gopalika and top police officials including the Kolkata Police Commissioner and State Director General of Police.
There was a serious security breach on Saturday midnight when a trespasser Hafizul Mollah sneaked inside the Chief Minister’s residence at Kalighat. The allegedly mentally deranged person has been arrested and is being investigated.
According to sources top bureaucrats are holding mobile addiction among the police personnel for such security lapses. The police men engaged in security duty both at Nabanna and the CM house will have to deposit their handsets before joining work, sources said adding the visitors too will be required to follow the same rule.
After Saturday’s incident about 15 police personnel including an inspector, a sergeant and two constables were removed from their duties.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated development Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari has written a letter to Home Minister seeking NIA investigation into some recent “alarming developments” including recovery of thousands of gelatin sticks and loads of explosives from various parts of the State.
“I have written to the Home Minister that Bengal is siting on powder keg … I have told him how 81,000 gelatin sticks were recovered by the police in Birbhum district and how a person was killed while making bombs at Domkal in Murshidabad district bordering Bangladesh … these all indicate towards a serious law and order problem ahead of the panchayat elections … it is clear that the TMC are preparing for the panchayat elections with bombs,” Adhikari on Tuesday said.
Referring to Mamata Banerjee’s recent ‘Jihad’ comments where she allegedly asked her party men to go for a jihad against the BJP Adhikari said, “as you know the Chief Minister has gone on record asking her people to conduct jihad, and subsequent recovery of these gelatin sticks and loads of explosives a time has come to investigate the entire development … so I have requested the Home Minister for an NIA investigation.