KOLKATA: Lamenting the lack of progress in investigations of politically sensitive cases by the police in West Bengal, CPI(M) state general secretary Mohd Salim has claimed that using sniffer dogs will yield better results while probing such incidents than human detectives.
This has led to a political controversy with the ruling TMC terming it as an attempt to demoralise the police force.
Salim made the controversial remarks at a public meeting in Bankura on Saturday, and followed it up with similar comments at another rally in Arambagh in Birbhum district earlier in the day.
"I apologise that my comparison of the ability of police to catch culprits with that of trained canines used by the force was an insult to the dogs, as they would return the trust posed in them through their performance," he said in Arambagh, where at least 10 people died in arson last month at Bogtui in retaliation to the murder of a TMC deputy panchayat chief.
"They (canines) will work objectively and not register cases at the behest of the likes of (TMC Birbhum district president) Anubrata Mondal," Salim added.
The Calcutta High Court has handed over the investigation of the massacre in Bogtui to the CBI from the state police.
The comments raised the hackles of the Trinamool Congress, which asked the CPI(M) leader to fight within political boundaries instead of targeting men in uniform, as such remarks could have a demoralising effect on the state's police force.
TMC state general secretary and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said drawing such comparisons is a genetic problem of the Left, as it had made similar comments against Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the past.
"Salim is carrying the same baggage of the Left that had once accused Netaji of being 'Tojo's dog'," he said.
The communists, before the undivided CPI split giving birth to the CPI(M), had derided Netaji as the running dog of Japanese general Tojo during World War-II.
The CPI(M) much later reassessed its earlier position on Bose, taking a more comprehensive view of his stellar role in India's freedom struggle.
Ghosh also said the more the CPI(M) is getting distanced from people, the more it is making "such dirty remarks".
BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said several such incidents in the recent past may have spurred Salim to make the comments.