Kolkata: A ‘fact-finding’ team of the BJP has attributed the Birbhum violence to “state-sponsored extortion”, and demanded that the Centre “strongly caution” All India Services (IAS) officers serving in West Bengal.
The team submitted a report on its findings to BJP president J.P. Nadda in New Delhi Wednesday.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called the report — which also claimed that the “mafia is ruling West Bengal” under the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership — a “misuse of power” that will “weaken” the CBI’s ongoing probe into the incident.
The BJP’s ‘fact-finding’ team comprised five members — West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar, national party spokesperson and former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh, former IPS officer and Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Ramamurthy, Lok Sabha MP and former Mumbai Police commissioner Satyapal Singh, and Rajya Sabha MP and former UP DGP Brijlal.
On 24 March, the team visited Birbhum district’s Bagtui village, where nine people, including a child, have lost their lives as a result of a brutal arson attack on 21 March.
The violence was allegedly in retaliation to the killing of local TMC leader and strongman Bhadu Sheikh, who was attacked with crude bombs and bullets near his brick house. Soon after, a mob allegedly set fire to four houses. Eight bodies — of a man, six women, and a seven-year-old girl — were found burnt beyond recognition. The toll rose to nine Monday as another woman succumbed to burn injuries.
Twenty-one people have been arrested in connection with the violence by Rampurhat police so far.
The Calcutta High Court handed over the investigation into the Birbhum killings to the CBI on 25 March, and set a deadline of 7 April for it to submit its progress report.
According to the two-page BJP report, accessed by ThePrint, the team visited the spot and spoke to the villagers.
On an official visit to Darjeeling, Mamata told reporters Wednesday: “I condemn this kind of attitude. When an investigation is on, there should not be any interference. It is misuse and abuse of power. This will mislead the investigation. I condemn the BJP’s attitude.”
She called the BJP’s report on the violence a “conspiracy”.
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What the report says
The report blames “state-sponsored extortion” as the reason behind the Birbhum violence.
“Under TMC leadership, mafia is ruling West Bengal in connivance with police and political leadership. The law-and-order machinery has totally collapsed,” it reads.
It further recommends that IAS officers serving in West Bengal be made to “realise their constitutional obligation”, and urged the Centre to “strongly caution them”.
However, the report did not name any Trinamool leader as being responsible for the 21 March violence.
The two-page document also claimed that Mamata “decided to visit the spot only after the fact-finding team reached Kolkata”.
Moreover, it alleged that because of the CM’s “forced” visit, the BJP team’s journey was “thwarted by TMC goons” who were bent upon “assaulting” them.
“Not even a single officer/constable of West Bengal Police was visible; nobody came to the rescue of the team when they were attacked. Our efforts to contact the DGP failed,” the report claimed.
The team has also recommended that the National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Women and “National Commission for Women and Child Rights (sic)” visit Bagtui village and “instill confidence-building measures” for “early return of people to their homes”.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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