Poll violence continued to torment Bengal with more reports of deaths, arson and forced migration trickling in from various parts of the State a day ahead of the fourth phase of the ongoing blood-smeared panchayat elections.
This, even as senior leaders including MlAs and Ministers engaged in rabble-rousing, inciting supporters to draw blood, literally.
Two Congress workers Noormuhammad Sheikh and Hayat Sheikh were bombed to death at Kapasdanga under Beldanga Police Station and another Congress man Ripon Sheikh fell victim to a similar attack in the wee hours of Sunday at Bharatpur. All crimes were organised in Murshidabad district a Congress stronghold, police said.
Junior Railway Minister Adhir Chowdhury claimed that the ruling Trinamool Congress was behind the attacks. His party colleague from the district Ashok Das alleged a Trinamool-CPI(M) nexus behind the murders.
At least 50 people were injured, some by bullets and bombs, in other parts of the State from Malda in North Bengal to South 24 Parganas in the South spanning a distance of about 500 km.
At Jhikramore, two CPI(M) supporters including a candidate were shot at and were said to be critical while a Congress man Manoar Sheikh met a similar fate at Bharatpur.
In Malda, another Congress stronghold, nine left cadres were injured while a Trinamool man was shot at near Kaliachak in sporadic clashes.
With Sunday’s killings the number of casualties reached 27 since the polls were declared. 13 people have died since the polls started on
July 11.
Far south, at Basanti in South 24 Parganas more than 100 houses were set afire in three villages leaving several injured and scores homeless. RSP legislator Subhas Naskar alleged his Trinamool counterpart Jayanta Naskar orchestrated the attack. “He personally supervised and directed his party men to torch the houses to teach our supporters a lesson for voting for us in the elections.” The other Naskar denied the allegations.
Amdanga and Kotra in North 24 Parganas continued to erupt intermittently, even as rival parties clashed with bombs and guns while terrorised locals fled homes in hordes.
The clashes come against the backdrop of senior Trinamool leaders, Ministers and MlAs inciting supporters to kill at will literally if one were to go by their speeches in public.
Days after senior party leader and Birbhum Trinamool Congress president Anubrata Mondal directing his party men to “torch the houses of the rebel Trinamool candidates and bomb the police who come to protect them” a Trinamool MlA from the same district on Sunday bragged in public as to how he felled three opposition heads apparently inciting the supporters to follow in his footsteps.
Manirul Islam the Trinamool MlA from luvpur told a crowd amid roaring applause how “I trampled to death three people who dared to insult our women” adding in presence of party MP Sisir Adhikary, “it would not take one minute to take the head off the shoulder of Bapi Dutta” a local Congress leader “if he accepts the challenge.”
Islam was running several cases including the murder case in which three CPI(M) supporters were lynched in 2010.
Curiously senior State Minister Madan Mitra on Saturday endorsed Mondal’s speech saying “Anubrata was speaking the lingo that the Marxists understand.”
Reacting sharply to the statement CPI(M) State secretary said: “Bengal is witnessing a 1972-like terror” reminding how Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier vowed revenge against the Election Commission in public.
Pradesh Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya said: “If the Government does not take action against the erring leaders and the SPs refuse to obey the Election Commission’s order then the situation is bound to become violent.” Though the police functions under the SEC, unlike the national Election Commission, it has no power to take action against them.
Alleging inaction by police an SEC official reminded how vide an administrative order the SPs were not being controlled by the IGs and DIGs but the Chief Minister who evaluated their performance. “We will take this up with the Governor,” one said.