Mamata Banerjee

Khanakul, Oct. 11: The spiral of violence since the Lok Sabha elections, which saw a brief lull, reared its head today in Hooghly where alleged CPM cadres shot at Trinamul Congress activists, injuring three of them.

The immediate trigger today was the CPM’s wish to impose a 12-hour bandh in Hooghly’s Arambagh area, about 120km from Calcutta, to protest the death of a party leader after he was allegedly battered by Trinamul men.

Arambagh is a CPM stronghold but since the general elections Trinamul has been trying to make inroads here.

On September 27, alleged Trinamul supporters beat up local CPM leader Sheikh Hasibul. He died in a nursing home on October 9. The CPM called a bandh today protesting the attack.

This morning, alleged CPM activists shot at a sweet shop owner and Trinamul supporter, Farid Midda, in Khanakul when he was opening his shop, flouting the bandh call.

Trinamul supporters rushed to the spot from neighbouring villages.

In Khanakul, Arambagh, the CPM and Trinamul party offices stand barely 100m apart.

Trinamul supporters almost immediately took position in their office and started hurling bombs towards the CPM office. For the next two hours, bombs flew and bullets crisscrossed. But the CPM activists were more in number and the Trinamul supporters gradually retreated and fled around 10.30am, after nearly two hours of violence.

After Midda, two others — Sheikh Sakim and Kashi Mondal — suffered bullet injuries.

The battle for turf control had intensified so much after the general elections that in a media statement on August 6, governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi termed it “a veritable tandava of political violence”.

Trinamul is not the only party that was at the receiving end of the CPM’s ire after the general elections. In Mangalkot, Burdwan, its supporters drove away Congress MLAs when they had gone to meet some supporters.

Tapan Dasgupta, Trinamul working president in Hooghly, today claimed two more supporters had been hurt.

Party chief Mamata Banerjee alleged at least seven Trinamul workers were shot at by CPM cadres. Besides, over 20 activists were held hostage in villages in Khanakul by CPM cadres, she claimed. “I spoke to Union home secretary G.K. Pillai with a request to ensure their safe return. Mukul had a talk with Chidambaramji during the day on the Arambagh situation,” she said.

Mamata alleged that Khanakul CPM MLA Banshibadan Mitra had steered today’s attack on Trinamul workers “in consultation with the chief minister”. “I have information that the CPM MLA from Khanakul had fired at our party workers himself,” she said.