A team of Bengal Government doctors has prima facie found no foul play in the unnatural death of BJP worker Dulal Kumar, who was on Saturday found hanging from an electric tower in Balrampur of Purulia district, triggering much political hullabaloo over ruling Trinamool Congress’ alleged politics of revenge.
Purulia SP Akash Maghariya, quoting hospital reports, told reporters on Sunday that the team of five doctors, who conducted the post-mortem, concluded that Kumar died of asphyxia due to suicidal hanging. Curiously, Maghariya replaced his predecessor Joy Biswas a day ago for making similar statements.
The BJP has demanded a CBI probe into the hanging. The BJP had claimed that the TMC cadre bumped the victim off because he ignored their warning against working for the saffron outfit in the recently-concluded panchayat polls.
Reacting to the Purulia SP’s claim, a local BJP leader said, “The (transferred SP) Biswas had declared the murder as suicide. The only difference is that the present SP made the same statement after the autopsy. This highlights that the Trinamool Government had already made up its mind on what the post-mortem report would say.”
Kumar was the second BJP worker to die in a similar fashion in three days. On Thursday evening, another BJP man Trilochan Mahato from the same district was allegedly accosted and brutally beaten up and then hung from a tree by alleged TMC workers who reportedly left a warning poster by his side and on his T-shirt that gave the cause of his murder saying he died because of his saffron leanings.
The BJP gave the TMC a stiff challenge in the Purulia panchayat elections.
Incidentally, the SP’s statement came within hours of another political worker, this time from the CPI(M), being beaten to death at Coochbehar where the TMC cadre had attacked a left panchayat members house and clubbed the victim to death when he protested.
Even as the State BJP leadership, including Mukul Roy, demanded a CBI investigation into the Purulia cases calling them “cold-blooded murders,” the district witnessed a dawn-to-dusk bandh called by the saffron outfit.
A State BJP leader said: “The TMC is only implementing the plans of their top leadership who had wanted an Opposition-less Purulia.” He also saw a Trinamool-Maoist design in eliminating the BJP men in the Jangalmahal area.
“Earlier, the TMC had teamed up with the Maoists to annihilate the CPI(M) workers like Salku Soren. Now they are applying the same strategy on our men. But we must remind them that we are not the CPI(M). We will make them feel the consequence of playing with fire,” the BJP leader said.