Three photo journalists were brutally assaulted on Friday allegedly by workers of the Trinamool Congress in Barrackpore, some 20 kms north of Kolkata. The alleged TMC men also tried to set fire to one of the camera men.
The incident took place when three camera men of Bangla news channels — ABP Ananda, 24 Ghanta and Kolkata TV — went to cover a skirmish among various Trinamool Congress groups vying with each other to secure nomination in the panchayat elections.
One of them, Barun Sengupta, a camera man of 24 Ghanta, was attacked with rods and bamboo sticks by rampaging Trinamool men, who were fighting among themselves, but turned their ire on the camera men, when they tried to shoot them in 'action'.
"I tried to flee when they charged at us, but they felled me on the ground raining blows; innumerable number of them, before pushing me inside a room and pouring petrol on me. I would have been charred to death had the police not intervened on time." Sengupta said. He was first admitted in BN Bose Hospital and was being shifted to Kolkata for better treatment.
Astik Chatterjee of ABP Ananda also suffered a similar fate when he was attacked with sticks and rods by the same mob.
He sustained broken limbs and fractured skull. "We had gone to cover the incident after news came that the Trinamool workers were fighting in the wake of the murder of another Trinamool worker allegedly by the members of one of the rival groups. As they did not want to get the scene shot, they attacked us."
The attackers were lenient on the third cameramen Tona Singh Roy of the Kolkata TV, who was left alone bleeding with a few blows on his face. The rampaging workers even attacked and vandalised the chamber of a district party leader and an advocate. "They broke the hand of my nephew," he said, adding the attackers were angry because their men were not given nomination.
Four men were arrested when reports last came in.
Reacting to the incident State Industries Minister Partho Chatterjee said, "Those carrying Trinamool flags could be party supporters, but not party workers."
Incidentally, a Bengal Minister had earlier asked his partymen to "do to the leftists what you do to a snake when you see it".