KOLKATA: The West Bengal Police on Tuesday lodged an FIR against BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and 25 other party leaders under the Disaster Management Act for allegedly violating norms in the wake of Covid pandemic.
Ghosh and senior BJP leaders had addressed a public meeting held in memory of party MLA Debendra Nath Roy at Raiganj on Monday. Roy was found hanging in front of a tea shop in July.
The state government has imposed a ban on political programmes and rallies across Bengal.
Reacting to the FIR lodged against Ghosh and others, the BJP accused the ruling Trinamool Congress of deploying government machineries to restrain political activities of the opposition.
Though the preliminary investigations indicated that Roy committed suicide, the BJP is demanding a CBI probe. Ghosh, Basu, Balurghat MP Sukanta Majumdar and BJP leaders had met the family of Roy and attended the public rally.
“Hundreds of BJP supporters turned up at the rally which was organised illegally. Since several Covid positive cases were reported from the area where the rally was organised, we considered the event as a gross violation of the norms laid down by the state government,’’ said a police officer.
But BJP district president Biswajit Lahiri, who is named as accused in the FIR, said the people of the area were not satisfied with the outcome of preliminary investigation.