BJP MPs stopped from entering troubled Basirhat

A three-member team of BJP MPs was stopped and detained by the police enroute to violence-hit North 24 Parganas on Saturday.

A heated argument broke out between the team and police as they were stopped at Michaelnagar on the outskirts of Basirhat.

The police told the delegation comprising Meenakshi lekhi, Om Mathur and Satyapal Singh, "If you go further, there could be problem."

"Kis baat ki samasya ho sakti hai IJ (What kind of problemIJ) Hum saansad hain pata hai aapkoIJ (We are MPs, do you know thatIJ) Privilege motion aa jaayega to aap mar jaaoge (If a privilege motion is slapped then you will be doomed)," Om Mathur told the police.

"So are you accepting that there is problem ahead in BasirhatIJ" posed lekhi amid the altercation.

"We know the law. We are MPs. We have certain privileges. So if you stop us like that, you may be in trouble tomorrow," cautioned Singh.

Even as the police insisted on their co-operation, the MPs suggested they accompany the police.

"let us go with you," said Mathur.

The team was set up on Thursday by party President Amit Shah to visit Basirhat and look into incidents of communal violence in the state.

lashing out at the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government, lekhi said: "There was no Section 144 imposed in the area, no papers were shown to us on why we were being detained when we hadn't committed any offence."

"Truth won't change whatever the Chief Minister (Mamata Banerjee) says. A BJP worker who has been stabbed (in the communal violence) is hospitalised," lekhi told reporters there.