New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Friday that the Centre was aware of the death of Bengal BJP partyman Arjun Chowrasia and had sought a report from the state government over it.
Shah said: “The Trinamool Congress government completed one year yesterday. Today, political murders have started in the state. BJP condemns the murder of Arjun Chowrasia. I met the grieving family, his grandmother was also beaten. The BJP demands a CBI inquiry into the incident.”
The Home Minister also said wherever he went in Bengal – during his two-day visit – he only got “reports of political violence and revenge attacks.”
Shah said the Centre would ensure that those behind the murder of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Arjun Chowrasia would be punished.
BJP youth wing leader Arjun Chowrasia was found hanging in an abandoned building near his home in north Kolkata Friday morning.
He was to lead a bike rally later in the day for one of the events planned for Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is visiting West Bengal – the first time after it came runner-up in the state elections last year.
Chowrasia’s death is the latest boiling point between the ruling Trinamool Congress and Opposition BJP which continue to accuse each other of political violence and murders in the state.
The BJP has alleged Chowrasia was killed by the TMC. The party’s Bengal unit said in a tweet: “Arjun Chowrasia, 27, BJYM Mondal Vice-President, North Kolkata was brutally slaughtered and hanged. This continuous slaying of opponent political workers highlights the demise of democracy in West Bengal. 57 BJP workers were massacred in the last year. Humanity is smothered by the TMC!”
Earlier in the day, the police forcibly removed protesters from the spot in Kashipur, Kolkata where Chowrasia was found dead. They were not allowing the body to be taken for postmortem.
Local Trinamool MLA Atin Ghosh said the protesters had come from outside. “When an unnatural death occurs, the police take the body for investigation and postmortem. It’s a natural course of action. They have obstructed it with their bad intention of dirty politics. We strongly condemn this,” he said.
Senior BJP leaders said the worker was murdered on the orders of the top TMC leadership, “only because Amit Shah’s programmes are scheduled today”.
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