Trinamool men hurl bombs, BJP cadre retaliate in Birbhum village
Bengal villages continue to burn like they did in the turbulent 1970s with three more people falling prey to a fierce political turf war between a violently aggressive Trinamool Congress and an assertive BJP in Birbhum district on Monday even as a “terrified” police force that was attacked a couple of days ago with bombs and brickbats watched the mayhem from a safe distance.
The bloody skirmish, which also left several injured, took place at Makra Village barely 10 km off Chowmandalpur under Parui Police Station where four police officers raiding locations stockpiled with crude bombs sustained injuries after they were attacked by ruling party goons barely 72 hours ago.
The three people killed in the gun-and-bomb battle were BJP supporter Sheikh Tausif, Trinamool leader from Dubrajpur SK Muzammel, who was allegedly leading the posse of musketeers that attacked Makra, a BJP-stronghold and SK Suleiman, a passerby, prompting the State’s sole BJP MlA Samik Bhattacharya to complain how “the Trinamool Congress is drawing blood of the minorities in Bengal making them a scapegoat”.
“The police knew of the attack but they did not intervene” was the common complaint even as the constables, turning their faces away from the camera said they had nothing to do. “Who will go to get killed thereIJ We are just sitting ducks. We have no authority to fire or lathi-charge as our officers are also afraid of those sitting above (read political leadership),” said one constable.
Such was the cold horror of the booming muskets and exploding bombs that the large combat force that finally entered the village two hours after the gun battle had to conduct house-to-house search to rescue injured people and dispatch them to hospital, sources said adding it was the crucial delay in moving the people to hospitals that led to the loss of lives.
Monday’s violence was not only limited to hurling of bombs and firing of shots. Houses were torched too. Even pregnant women were not spared. Many of them sustained splinter injuries and many hid themselves in ponds for hours to escape the attackers’ wrath.
The horror was even more evident after sunset as the entire village wore a war-time look with lights switched off and not a human voice to be heard, sources said adding only “some groaning was heard intermittently as many of the injured were still languishing in the village”. The incident took place barely 48 hours after two persons were shot dead and many more injured in a gunfight between rival groups led by local Trinamool Congress dons Arabul Islam and Kaisher Ahmed at Bhangore, a semi-urban area on the outskirts of Kolkata.
The BJP and the Trinamool soon entered into a war of words each blaming the other for the skirmish. The dreaded Trinamool strongman and its Birbhum district president Anubrata Mandal --- who had publicly asked his men to torch Opposition houses, bomb police vehicles besides threatening journalists with car accidents and Opposition workers with getting their hands chopped --- accused the BJP of killing his party leader SK Muzammel.
BJP district president Dudhkumar Mandal shot back asking “What was Muzammel a resident of Dubrajpur doing at Makra kms away from his village with so many gunmen defying Section 144 clamped by the police in the area”.
Reacting to the incident, State BJP president Rahul Sinha demanded a “comprehensive enquiry into the incident” adding “it is a clear throwback of the Nandigram and Keshpur violence that was perpetrated by the earlier regime against those who are in power today.” “Attacking a village with guns and resisting it with bombs are equally deplorable,” he added.
CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakraborty said under the Trinamool regime “Bengal villages have been pushed to the brink of civil war where the goons are migrating between Trinamool and the BJP for shelter.”