BJP men killed worker with shotgun: Police
The West Bengal Police has put the blame of BJP worker Ulen Roy’s death on “shotgun fire” by “armed persons”, who it alleged, were brought by the saffron party to its rally to Uttar Kanya, the North Bengal state secretariat in Siliguri, on Monday with a “malafide intention to create violence.”
In a veiled reference to the incident, West Bengal and Trinamul Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told a meeting in Burdwan West, “BJP holds it’s rallies but kills own workers to peddle lies...They just killed someone firing pallets so easily!”
Calling the incident “unprecedented” and “unheard” the police has entrusted the criminal investigation department (CID) for a probe though the BJP, which observed a 12-hour North Bengal bandh on Tuesday in protest of its worker’s death, rejected it’s allegations.
The police, which earlier rejected the BJP’s claims of lathicharge as the cause of Roy’s death, stated, “As per the post mortem report ‘death was due to the effects of shotgun injuries.’ Police do not use shotguns. It’s obvious that during yesterday’s protest in Siliguri, armed persons were brought and they fired from firearms. The deceased received pallet injuries from a shotgun fired from close range by a person standing near the deceased in the protest program.”
It added, “This is unprecedented. Bringing armed persons in protest programs and inciting them to fire is unheard off. There was a malafide intention to create violence by the use of firearms. CID West Bengal has been asked to investigate. Truth will come out and strong action will be taken against all those who planned and executed the heinous crime.”
Countering the police version, state bjp president Dilip Ghosh said, “I found at least ten more workers, who were on the front of the rally, suffered similar gunshots like Roy’s. The police provoked them to come towards them. When they moved ahead, the firing began suddenly. Roy alone had around 10 wounds from gunshots. Who, if not the police, opened the fire then? Who were with the police there? Were they Trinamul Congress workers in the police uniform? We find them with the cops everywhere to attack us.”