KOLKATA: BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya accusing West Bengal police of hurling bombs and violating human rights during the party's march to the state secretariat, Saturday said it will move court to seek "justice in the inhuman treatment by the force".
He hit out at the West Bengal government for following "two set of rules" - one for BJP and another for the ruling TMC and said that COVID-19 protocols were violated during TMC's rallies against the alleged Hathras rape and the Farm bills, but no action was taken against it.
"The kind of treatment that was meted out to BJP activists during their democratic march to the secretariat on Thursday is unprecedented and unacceptable. "The police hurled bombs at our cadres, ransacked their buses and violated human rights. Our party workers were kicked and the police even manhandled our women cadres. Is this the way you (Bengal police) treat opposition party workers ?" Vijayvargiya asked.
Alleging that false cases had been lodged against BJP workers after the rally, he said, "We will move court and the human rights commission to seek justice against the atrocities committed by the West Bengal police."
Vijayvargiya's comments came a day after police booked him along with senior BJP leaders like its national vice- president Mukul Roy, state unit president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee for rioting and violating the Epidemic Diseases Act.
They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction, assault on government servant and violating the Disaster Management Act. Police said that some of the sections slapped against the BJP leaders are non-bailable.
On the issue of the police allegedly assaulting a Sikh man and pulling his turban during the party's rally in Howrah, Vijayvargiya accused the TMC government in the state of hurting the sentiments of the community.
He took at a dig at the ruling party in the state and said it proved that "except for a particular community people of other communities are not treated with dignity". "No one is treated with dignity in Bengal, except a particular community for vote bank politics. We have been saying this for a long time. Now the visuals (of the march) are also saying the same thing," he said.
BJP has long accused the TMC of playing the minority card. A controversy had erupted on Friday over the West Bengal police allegedly assaulting a Sikh man and pulling at his turban during a BJP rally in Howrah on Thursday.
The police said the person was carrying a firearm and that his headgear "had fallen off on its own in the scuffle with the rallyists". TMC on its part has dubbed the allegations as "baseless" and said accused BJP of "trying to communalise the issue".
"If someone has committed a wrong act, the law will take its own course. What has it to do with his religion? The BJP is trying to communalize the issue to divert attention," senior BJP leader and state minister Firhad Hakim said.
As visuals of the incident went viral triggering a political controversy, the West Bengal government had on Friday tweeted, "The concerned person was carrying firearms in yesterday's (Thursday's) protest. The Pagri (turban) had fallen off automatically in the scuffle that ensued, without any attempt to do so by our officer.It is never our intention to hurt the sentiments of any community."
The man was identified as 43-year-old Balwinder Singh, a resident of Bhatinda in Punjab. An ex-Army man, Singh currently works as a private security officer and was hired by a BJP leader, the party claimed.
According to the police, a loaded pistol was recovered from him. The licence for the firearm is valid till January 2021.