BJP to up ante against TMC’s killer campaign
In view of the increased attacks on BJP workers in Birbhum, party president Amit Shah on Wednesday set up a three-member fact-finding team, headed by vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and rushed it to Kolkata to visit the affected areas of Birbhum.
The team, also including party MPs Kirti Azad and Udit Raj, will submit a report based on their assessment of the situation at the ground level.
In the meantime, violence continued in the State with four people of a particular community reportedly hacked to death after communal clashes over idol immersion after Kali Puja in Malda. Police said that a large posse of RAF and combat forces had been rushed to the area and that the situation was “strictly under control.” Curfew was imposed in at least three police station areas of the district.
Though tension was brewing between the residents of Sujapur under Kaliachak Police Station and Madhughat under English Bazar Police Station over the immersion procession, things came to a head on Tuesday night when two groups fought against each other with firearms, bombs and swords. The district, where minorities constitute about 60 per cent of the population, was in 2009 broken into two parliamentary constituencies, North and South Malda.
The Bengal Police also tended to show the trailer of what they intended to do when the BJP delegation visits the killing fields of Makra and Chowmangalpur in the politically simmering Birbhum district on Thursday.
The police arrested a delegation of 12 senior left leaders including MPs, MlAs former Ministers and MPs, who were visiting the area to take stock of the situation after Monday’s violence. The left leaders had refused bail on personal bonds and were still under detention when reports last came in.
Among those arrested were sitting Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee, former lok Sabha MP Ramchandra Dome, and MlA and former State Minister and senior left leader Anisur Rahman, who was arrested for requesting the police to let at least two persons inside Makra Village to take stock of the situation.
“The police are allowing groups of Trinamool men, their musketeers and bombers to enter the village to kill innocent villagers but are stopping us people’s representatives from entering the area” Banerjee said.
While the left leaders were arrested, separate delegations of the BJP and that of the Congress, led by party MP Abhijit Mukherjee, escaped a similar fate as they were pushed back by the police.
The BJP and the left later staged a demonstration at the SP office at Siuri, sources said.
While the senior police officials complained that the left delegation had broken prohibitive orders under Section 144, the left leaders said that they had asked the police to “let only two members of the delegation to go in the village and that too, accompanied by the police force which they refused” leading to heated exchanges and subsequent arrest.
Apart from the Opposition leaders, the police also arrested five reported accused, mostly BJP supporters for the violence.
Naqvi, who is in Kolkata, charged that West Bengal was fast becoming a safe haven for terrorists and anarchists under the ruling TMC raising concerns about national security. For his part, State BJP president Rahul Sinha visited the Election Commission office with a prayer to get the Trinamool Congress declared a “terrorist party”.