A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the BJP for the recent violence in Kaliaganj following the alleged rape and murder of a minor tribal girl, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari alleged that state police brutally killed a 33-year-old BJP worker at Kaliaganj. He claimed that the “trigger-happy ‘Mamata’ police” raided the house of a BJP Panchayat Samiti Member and shot dead a Rajbangshi youth named Mrityunjay Barman who had come from Siliguri to attend a wedding.
The BJP has called for a 12-hour bandh in North Bengal on Friday to protest the killing of the 17-year-old girl and Mritunjay Barman. Debashree Chowdhury, a Member of Parliament and former Union Minister, made the announcement from the BJP’s protest stage in Raiganj.
Relatives of the slain Mritunjay Barman said that a police team had raided the Radhikapur house in search of BJP Panchayat Samiti member Bishnu Barman. The police could not find the BJP member but then attempted to take his father and brother-in-law into custody. When Bishnu Barman’s cousin, Mritunjay Barman, protested, he was shot dead, they alleged.
BJP President Sukanta Majumdar said: “Ever since the rape and murder in Kaliganj happened, police have started committing atrocities on the BJP supporters from the SC community in north Bengal on the orders of Mamata Banerjee. Police had gone there last night to arrest people, and during this, they also shot a BJP worker. We will protest against this.”
In a tweet on Thursday morning, Adhikari stated that the state of Bengal is currently facing a distressing situation of state terror, which he considers to be in its worst form. Taking to Twitter, Adhikari wrote, “Trigger-happy ‘Mamata’ police raided the house of a BJP Panchayet Samiti Member Bishnu Barman at 2:30 am midnight (27 April, 2023) but did not find him. They brutally shot dead a Rajbangshi young man named Mrityunjay Barman, 33 years old, S/O Rabindranath Barman.”
He further added, “This is tyranny and state terror at its worst form, and Mamata Banerjee is merry-making like Emperor Nero while the state is burning and sliding into a phase of civil unrest.”
