KOLKATA: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee faced protests from locals on Sunday while she, along with Trinamool Congress MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Dola Sen, was on her way to meet the family members of a deceased party worker at Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas district.
Locals allegedly backed by the ruling BJP attacked Banerjee’s car three times and raised slogans of ‘chor, chor (thief)’ as her convoy was passing through Bijpur Road, close to Kanchrapara. The protesters also hurled mud and slippers at her car, claiming that she had come to the spot to provoke political unrest in the area.
Spearheading her attack on Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, Mamata told reporters, "Forget about my security. Police are patronising the lumpen backed by the BJP. Bengal is now under the control of lumpen and we will move the court against the well-planned attack on me."
"I could have died here. My head could have been injured. They have hurled big brick pieces on my car. Police are protecting the BJP," she alleged.
Mamata faced such a protest for the first time since the Trinamool Congress suffered a crushing defeat to the BJP in the Bengal Assembly polls, with her car being attacked.
While reacting to the incident, CMAdhikari said, “She gets Z plus category security arrangements. She went to the spot to do politics without giving prior information to police. Despite that, police led by one deputy commissioner of police have given her proper support and ensured her security.”
“The family members of the deceased have also understood her intention of taking political mileage in the name of meeting them. It was a spontaneous mass protest against her without carrying any flag of the BJP. No one of the BJP was found there during the protest. You (Mamata) should use an earphone to avoid ‘chor’ slogans in future,” he told reporters.
Earlier, Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP and Mamata’s nephew, was also attacked in Sonarpur, around 30 km from Esplanade in Kolkata, when a mob hurled eggs at him.
On Sunday, Mamata was accompanied by Kalyan Banerjee, Sreerampore MP, and Dola Sen, Rajya Sabha MP of the Trinamool Congress. "Suvendu Adhikari is ruling the state with the help of mafias," Kalyan alleged.
Notably, Mamata was prevented from meeting the wife and other relatives of the deceased. She was seen coming back from the doorstep of the victim’s residence after his elder brother did not allow her, Kalyan and Dola to enter.
Sunday's incident took place amid escalating political tensions following the alleged custodial death of Birju Keot, husband of Zeni Sharma Keot, a former Trinamool Congress councillor of Kanchrapara Municipality, in police lockup under Halisahar police station in North 24 Parganas district.
The incident took place in the Kanchrapara area of the district on Friday night.
Zeni Sharma Keot lodged a complaint with the local police station, alleging that her husband Birju Keot was beaten to death by police inside the lockup.
Birju was arrested by Halisahar police on charges of alleged extortion and other corrupt practices. He was produced before a court by police on Friday and remanded to police custody for five days.
The family members of the deceased claimed that he was in good health until 10 pm on Friday, when his wife met him at the police station.
He had also undergone a medical check-up on Thursday night, and no major illness was mentioned in the report, they claimed.
Zeni had also handed over clothes to her husband for use at the police station. She alleged that police ruthlessly beat her husband inside the lockup on Friday night after she left the police station.
According to sources at the police station, Birju was found lying ill inside the lockup on Friday night and was rushed to the state-run medical college hospital at Kalyani on an emergency basis, where doctors declared him dead.
He might have died of cardiac arrest, though the exact cause of his death has not officially been confirmed.
It has not yet been confirmed whether any injury marks were found on his body. The body was sent to the morgue for a post-mortem examination.
The local Trinamool Congress unit has demanded a proper inquiry into Birju’s mysterious death.
The party leadership has raised questions, saying, “How did the police arrest him though there was no FIR filed against him so far?”
