Mamata cavalcade attacked, BJP denies role
There was high political drama after a crowd of protesters on Sunday hurled sleepers, mud and water bottles at former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s motorcade when she was visiting the house of a party worker who reportedly died in police custody. Banerjee alleged the BJP and Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s hand behind the attack.
The incident took place at Halisahar in North 24 Parganas some 50 km north of Kolkata. Even as Banerjee’s car reached near the house of the deceased, a crowd surrounded it and threw water bottles, sleepers and mud even as they shouted “Chor “ (thief) and “Dakat Rani (bandit queen).”
An angry Trinamool Congress supremo immediately alighted from her car yelling at the crowd even as she alleged, “these are all BJP lumpens they have been brought from outside to heckle and harass in connivance with the police… the Home Minister (read Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari who manages the Home portfolio too) is responsible for this me they threw big bricks at my vehicle… they targeted me and had the windows been open I could have received broken head… Such an attack I never faced in my life and all in front of the police who waited and watched with mischievous silence.
“The Home Minister is responsible for this lumpenisation of the system … the police brass is responsible for what took place today,” Banerjee said, inviting almost prompt reply from the Chief Minister who blamed Banerjee for trying to politicise the issue in order to remain politically afloat in the State politics.
“She still enjoys Z-Plus security that we have not withdrawn… she went there without intimating the police moreover there was no BJP person in the crowd… no BJP flag was there… she went there to enact a political drama when the family members of the victim are saying they have full faith in the police and the administration,” Adhikari said.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya condemned the Halisahar incident but rejected reports of stone-pelting. “Pelting stones or attacking politicians are not in the BJP culture… you can raise slogans, show black flags, but you cannot pelt stones; but in this case there is no report of BJP men involved in the attack.”
Earlier, Briju Keot, a TMC worker, allegedly died in police custody, leading the top TMC leader to visit his residence on Sunday. The police had on Friday arrested 48-year-old Keot, the husband of former Kanchrapara municipal councillor Jenny Sharma Keot, for his alleged involvement in financial fraud, extortion and also for possessing arms. After he was remanded to police custody, he fell ill in the lockup early on Saturday morning and was declared dead upon arrival at the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital in Kalyani.
“This is a pre-planned murder… and we will move the Court,” both Mamata Banerjee and party MP Kalyan Banerjee said.
