Sheikh Anarul Hussein, a Trinamool Congress district committee member — and the alleged mastermind behind the Birbhum mass killings — and 21 others were on Thursday arrested hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited Bagtui village in Birbhum district where 10 people, including six women and two children, were on Tuesday evening hacked and then burnt alive.
Anarul orchestrated the carnage in retaliation of the murder of his close crony Bhadu Sheikh, a panchayat vice pradhan who wasbombed to death a couple of hours before the Bagtui carnage.
Mamata, who had on Wednesday advocated a “larger conspiracy” angle on Thursday, toned down the “conspiracy” rhetoric ordering the arrest of Anarul after visiting Bagtui. “I could never have imagined that such a barbaric act can take place in modern day Bengal... where women, mothers and even children are burnt alive … this incident must not go unpunished and so I ask the police to immediately arrest the culprits,” Mamata said before ordering the arrest of Anarul, a mason-turned-TMC politician with a multi-million empire.
In what the Opposition parties immediately saw “an attempt to suppress and dilute the real case,” Mamata said, “I hear that one of our block presidents is guilty of not sending in the police despite being repeatedly requested by the victims’ family members.” She also ordered the suspension of the Rampurhat officer in-charge of police.