KOLKATA: Cut money agitations turned violent in the past 24 hours in West Bengal as demonstrators set a Trinamool panchayat samiti member’s house ablaze, stones were hurled, and the officer in charge of a police station was injured while trying to deal with the agitators. About 50 persons had assembled in front of the house of Pampa Pradhan, a member of Potashpur-II panchayat samiti in East Midnapore district, on Thursday evening.
They asked her to furnish the details of expenditure for development works and the volume of cut money she had collected from beneficiaries of government schemes. Pampa allegedly refused to meet the demand, claiming she was innocent.“They assembled in front of her house and set it on fire when she refused to furnish the expenditure list,’’ said an officer of Potashpur police station.
In north Bengal’s Cooch Behar, stones were hurled by a group of irate local residents who set up a roadblock in protest against the cut money allegedly collected by the ruling party’s local leaders.
The situation worsened when police reached the spot and tried to placate the mob.
At Ketugram in Burdwan, local people surrounded the house of a Trinamool leader on Friday, demanding that he return the cut money he had taken. “A pitched battle began between the local police and the agitators,’’ said a police officer.
The officer in charge of the local police station was injured when a stone hit his head.
TNIE Exclusive | TMC’s cut money victims in West Bengal: Widows, poor and the aged