KOLKATA: A BJP leader in West Bengal's Barrackpore was shot dead on Sunday night when he was sitting in a road-side tea stall, a stone’s throw from the local Titagarh police station and around 20 km from Kolkata.
The police said four assassins riding two motorcycles came and one of the two pillion riders fired at Manish Shukla, the deceased. Shukla, who is known as Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh’s close aide, was hit by four bullets on his shoulder and chest.
The BJP accused the Trinamool Congress of killing Shukla, a member of the party’s Barrackpore organisational committee while the ruling party said the incident was a fall out of the saffron camp’s internal feud.
Reacting to the incident, governor Jagdeep Dhankhar asked the director-general of police to come to Raj Bhavan on Monday. As the DGP did not turn up Dhankhar’s office, chief secretary Alapan Banerjee went to Raj Bhavan with the report submitted by the commissioner of police, Barrackpore police commisionerate.
‘’Now fake mails after LOCUST MESSAGING and calls-reported @KolkataPolice. Nothing happened @WBPolice when Governor was stopped on road by hooliganism and in social media his photo morphed. Hope action @MamataOfficial is initiated and epicentre exposed,’’ Dhankhar tweeted.
Since last year’s general election, Barrackpore witnessed a series of violence with sporadic clashes between TMC supporters and followers of Singh, who defected to the BJP from the ruling party before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and snatched the Barrackpore seat from TMC’s veteran contestant Dinesh Trivedi. At least 12 persons were killed over a period of two months after the election last year.
‘’Shukla was with me and we attended party programmes at Habra and Amdanga in North 24-Parganas district. After returning Barrackpore, I left for Kolkata and he went to Titagarh. Within half-an-hour I heard that he was shot. The TMC goons killed Shukla,’’ said Singh.
Shukla was attacked a few months ago and Singh appointed to private security guards for him, who were on leave for seven days, said the police.
Shukla was a CPM activist and he changed his political allegiance in 2009 after Singh was elected from Barrackpore constituency on TMC’s ticket. He became a local TMC leader and again changed his political alignment by joining the BJP with Singh.