BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s personal assistant was riddled with bullets and killed late on Wednesday night by bike-borne assailants who fired indiscriminately through the closed window pane of his car after following it for a distance in Madhyamgram.
Chandranath Rath, who died on the spot, was in the front seat next to the driver of the white Mahindra Scorpio when a small car overtook and blocked it. Soon, the men on the bikes levelled up and fired shots through the glass pane of the SUV.
Rath was from Kulup village in East Midnapore’s Iswarpur but lived in Barasat, North 24-Parganas. Rath, who sources said was in his 30s, had been entrusted with official work related to Adhikari’s Nandigram Assembly constituency.
The driver of the car, which had a Bengal Assembly board on it, also suffered bullet injuries and has been admitted to Apollo Hospital in Calcutta, where his condition was stated to be critical.
Rath suffered critical injuries in the firing and was rushed to a private hospital at Jessore Road, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
“The victim was brought dead with multiple bullet injuries in his chest. One bullet had pierced his heart while another got lodged in the abdominal area. There was no opportunity to resuscitate him,” Dr Pritam Sengupta said.
The driver, Buddhadeb Bera, has suffered bullet injuries in his liver, lungs and shoulder. “He was conscious and needed major cardio-thoracic surgery, for which he was referred (to Apollo),” the doctor said.
An eyewitness said: “At least 10-12 rounds of bullets were fired. Chandra da was in the front seat. The assailants targeted him and shattered the window pane with gunshots. He did not have a chance.”
North 24 Parganas: A damaged glass window of a vehicle after BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari's personal assistant Chandranath Rath was shot at from close range by unidentified assailants, according to sources, in West Bengal
Adhikari, who was in Contai, rushed to the spot.
Bengal DGP Siddh Nath Gupta went to the spot and said the car which had stopped Rath’s vehicle had been seized. “The vehicle that stopped Chandranath Rath’s car has been found and seized. The vehicle had a fake number plate. We are looking for the assailants,” Gupta said.
The police said the steel-grey small car, a Nissan Micra, was seized in Barasat.
The shooting happened around 11pm at Doharia in Madhyamgram, around 55km from the heart of Calcutta. The police said CCTV cameras in the area were being scanned to identify the bikes.
Many in the BJP, including Bengal unit president Samik Bhattacharya, blamed the Trinamool Congress for the murder. Trinamool won the Madhyamgram seat in the Assembly polls.
Trinamool issued a statement on social media “strongly condemning the brutal murder of Chandranath Rath in Madhyamgram tonight, along with the killing of three other TMC workers in incidents of post-poll violence allegedly carried out by BJP-backed miscreants over the last three days, despite the Model Code of Conduct being in force”.
“We demand the strongest possible action in this matter, including a court-monitored CBI investigation so that those responsible are identified and brought to justice
without delay. Violence and political killings have no place in a democracy and the guilty must be held accountable at the earliest,” the statement added.
Bhattacharya accused Trinamool of indulging in “politics of anti-socials”. He said this was a “well-planned and calculated” murder and that a “message” had been sent to Adhikari through the attack.
Bhattacharya said the people must hit the streets and pledged to take action in keeping with the law after the BJP forms the government.