NEW DELHI: The horrific killing of eight persons, including two children, in an alleged revenge attack by Trinamool goons in West Bengal, took a new turn on Wednesday with the Calcutta High Court taking suo motu cognisance of the incident and directing the state government to file its probe report by 2 pm on Thursday.
The court also directed the Delhi Central Forensic Science Laboratory to send a team to the crime site in Rampurhat in Birbhum district to collect samples for forensic examination.
It instructed the police to extend protection to the witnesses, including a boy injured in the arson, and ordered CCTV cameras to be installed at the crime scene and made functional until further orders.
Parallelly, the National Commission for Women directed the state DGP to take stringent action in view of the “brutality meted out to people including women” in the heinous crime.
The Trinamool Congress was in the line of fire from almost all quarters with Prime Minister Narendra Modi sharing his anguish and saying those who encourage such crimes must not be forgiven.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind lamenting that “during last month itself there were 26 political murders in West Bengal.”
He sought the invoking of Article 355 of the Constitution in the state.
The post-poll violence has claimed many lives.
The whole state is in the grip of fear and violence," the Congress leader said in his letter to the President.
"In view of the deteriorating law and order situation in West Bengal, I request you to invoke Article 355 of the Constitution to ensure that the government of West Bengal is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution," he said.
Chowdhury said he raised the serious matter in Parliament on Monday in order to draw the attention of the nation to the "breakdown of the constitutional machinery'' in the state.
Article 355 of the Constitution says that "It shall be the duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every State is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution."
On Birbhum violence, he said that in a fight between two groups of the ruling party in Bogtui village in Birbhum district, the deputy pradhan Dhri Bhadu Sheikh was killed and in retaliation houses in the area were attacked and set afire, ''resulting in 12 deaths including that of women and children''.
He said all the victims belong to the minority community.
For her part, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee assured that the rule of law will take its course.
While she claimed no one will be stopped from visiting the crime site, Bengal BJP MLAs led by Suvendu Adhikari said they were prevented from visiting Rampurhat.
Left parties, too, held protests against the government. “Such violence acts are becoming a signature of the Trinamool rule, especially in Mamata’s third term,” said CPI-ML’s Dipankar Bhattacharya.
A BJP delegation led by Suvendu Adhikari was stopped from visiting the spot in West Bengal's Birbhum district, where eight people were charred to death, prompting the state's principal opposition party to demand Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's resignation over the incident, alleging that attempts were being made to shield the culprits.
The BJP delegation led by Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the state Assembly, was stopped as police had put up barricades just outside Bogtui village.
"We were stopped from visiting the spot, but the chief minister had said she would be going there. She will be visiting the area to remove pieces of evidence and protect the culprits. We are against it. If we are not allowed, then no one else should also be permitted to visit it," he said.
"Only CBI and NIA probe can bring out the truth," he said.
Banerjee has asserted that strict action would be taken against the perpetrators of violence.
"The chief minister is also the home minister of the state. She has failed in discharging her duties as the home minister. She should immediately resign," Adhikari told reporters on his way to Birbhum.
BJP MP and the party's state vice-president Arjun Singh stated that the CM must take moral responsibility for the incident and step down.
"Earlier, it was the opposition workers who were facing the heat. Now it is TMC versus TMC in the state. Leaders of the ruling party are fighting among themselves. The CM must immediately step down, and probe into Birbhum killings must be handed over to the CBI. The police are trying to hush up the matter. Attempts are being made to shield the culprits," Singh added.
Meanwhile, the TMC, taking a dig at the opposition BJP, said its "members were out on a picnic".
Sharing on Twitter a video of BJP leaders at a sweetmeat shop savouring local delicacies en-route to the spot where the killings took place, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that "the saffron camp made arrangements for the visit of its members to violence-hit Birbhum, but they are having a picnic on their way to the district".
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday asserted that strict action would be taken against the perpetrators of violence in Birbhum district, where eight people were charred to death in a village the day before.
Banerjee said she would on Thursday visit Bogtui village, where houses were set on fire shortly after a village panchayat deputy chief was murdered, to take stock of the situation.
Describing the incident as "unfortunate", she said, "It was an attempt by the BJP, Left and the Congress to malign our government" Strict action will be taken against all those responsible for the Birbhum incident, irrespective of their (political) colour.
"We have already removed the (police) Officer-in-Charge, the SDPO and other senior officers.
The DGP is in the district since yesterday," she underlined.
The CM, speaking at a programme here, also maintained that she had to postpone her visit to the district by a day as she did not want to get into a confrontation with leaders of opposition political parties camping there.
Taking a dig at BJP, she said its leaders have "limped (lyanchate) their way to the district, stopping to savour 'lyangcha' (sweetmeat originating in Burdwan district's Shaktigarh area) in between".
"I will go there (Bogtui village) tomorrow. I would have gone there today, but a few political parties are on their way to the place. It would get late by the time they return. I don't want to visit the place when they (opposition leaders) are around. I don't want to get into any quarrel."
"Let them relish 'lyangcha' and then get on with their journey to Rampurhat," Banerjee quipped.
Referring to past incidents of violence in other states, she said that her party MPs were stopped at the airport in Assam, where they had gone to protest NRC implementation, and entry wasn't allowed in UP's Hathras and Unnao (where gang-rape cases occurred), too, but her government would never do the same.
"This is Bengal, not UP. We allowed everyone to visit Birbhum."
"Not justifying the Birbhum killings, but such incidents are more frequent in UP, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan," she said.
Leader of opposition and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, however, stated that he and other members of his party were stopped from visiting the site of the incident.
Banerjee, during the programme, also claimed that such incidents are results of conspiracy hatched to divert attention from issues of concern, such as price hike of petrol and other commodities.
"You (People) must have noticed that price of gas, petrol and other commodities have been hiked. They are hatching conspiracies to carry out such incidents to divert people's attention. The BJP has asked media to keep on shouting on this (Birbhum killings)," she contended.
In a veiled attack on Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, Banerjee said, "There is one 'Laat saheb' (lordly person) sitting here and describing Bengal as the worst state, hurling abuses at the state government."
Banerjee and Dhankhar had been engaged in a heated exchange over the Birbhum incident since Tuesday.
BJP, Trinamool MPs spar in Lok Sabha
BJP MPs from West Bengal urged the Centre on Wednesday to use constitutional provisions to intervene in the state, alleging in the Lok Sabha that the deaths of eight people after their houses were set ablaze in Birbhum district show that law and order has collapsed under the rule of Trinamool Congress.
As soon as the Zero Hour began, several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs showed placards and raised slogans against the West Bengal government, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state unit chief of the BJP, spoke on the matter later.
Rebutting the allegations, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said whatever happened in Birbhum had nothing to do with any political fight and noted that around 20 people have been arrested by the state police in connection with the incident.
He asked the BJP not to do politics over the incident and said his party has sought an appointment with Union Home Minister Amit Shah regarding the matter.
Shad met a delegation of BJP MPs from the state on Tuesday.
Majumdar said the deaths of so many people as an act of revenge following the killing of a panchayat leader of the TMC have "ashamed" humanity and cited locals to allege that the houses of the victims were set ablaze in the presence of police personnel.
Twenty-six people have been killed in a week in West Bengal as law and order has collapsed in the state, he said.
Political violence had also exploded in the state following the TMC's victory in the May, 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP leader alleged, urging the Centre to intervene.
He noted that all the victims in the fire tragedy were members of a minority (Muslim) community.
"We want the central government's intervention in the state of West Bengal to stop the state-sponsored terrorism," a placard raised by one of the BJP MPs in the House read.
BJP MP Dilip Ghosh also slammed the West Bengal government.
He told reporters that even Muslims, who are seen as dependable supporters of the TMC, are not safe in the state as the goons allegedly affiliated to the ruling party target people indiscriminately.
Twenty-two people have so far been arrested in connection with violence in Birbhum that has claimed eight lives, a senior police officer said on Wednesday.
The family members of Bhadu Sheikh, the panchayat leader of the TMC whose killing on Monday is suspected to have sparked off the attack with petrol bombs on some 10 houses in Bogtui village on the outskirts of Rampurhat town, claimed that Sheikh's sons were among those arrested.
However, police are yet to release the names of those arrested.
All the eight victims, including two children, were charred to death as nearly a dozen houses were set ablaze with petrol bombs in Bogtui in the early hours of Tuesday.
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday fired fresh salvos at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the Birbhum killings as he shot off yet another letter to her, claiming that the state government's actions in the matter smack of "political overtones" and an attempt to shield the guilty.
Eight people were charred to death as their houses were set on fire in Bogtui village near Rampurhat town of Birbhum district early on Tuesday.
The incident is suspected to be the fallout of ruling TMC panchayat officials murder.
Dhankhar had on Tuesday described the death of eight people at Rampurhat as "horrific" and claimed that the state was in the grip of a culture of "violence and lawlessness", drawing a sharp reaction from Banerjee, who said that his comments were "uncalled for".
Dhankhar, in his three-page reply to Banerjee on Wednesday, said the CM has adopted an "accusatory stance" at his "restrained reaction" to the incident.
"As usual, you have taken an accusatory stance at my restrained reaction to grisly carnage worst in the memory at Rampurhat. The shocking carnage is being justifiably compared by many to the incidents in the state, a few years ago, while you were in the opposition.
"Adopting diversionary tactics, you have labelled my reaction as a sweeping and uncalled for statement. In the face of such enormity, I cannot fiddle in Raj Bhavan and be a mute spectator," he wrote.
Calling for introspection, the governor also said "nothing can be more farcical" than the claim that the state had always been peaceful, barring a few incidents.
"Introspection would reveal that actions at your (Banerjee's) end and not mind are dictated by political overtones.
"Special Investigation Team (SIT) is being taken as a cover-up operation to provide an escape route to rogue elements. Politically caged investigation in the state inspires no confidence," he added.
(With PTI Inputs)