Incidents of threats, assault and killings have continued in Bengal after the Assembly election results despite appeals by BJP leaders such as Suvendu Adhikari and Samik Bhattacharya.
At least four people have died in the state since the Assembly poll results were declared on Monday night. Incidents of sporadic skirmishes are being reported from many areas. Many Trinamool offices have been vandalised or taken over.
Even in Kolkata, a school-bus attendant for one of the city’s better-known schools “forced” kids to chant “Jai Sri Ram” on Wednesday morning, it is reliably learnt.
“Nobody should indulge in violence. That is the difference between the BJP and the Trinamool,” Adhikari, who defeated Mamata Banerjee from Bhabanipur and won also from Nandigram and is being seen as the forerunner in the race for the next chief minister, said on Wednesday.
“Real change should be transparent. Every person has the right to follow their own political ideology. Don’t take the law into your hands,” Adhikari said.
Similarly, Bengal BJP president Bhattacharya had warned that any party worker found involved in violence would be suspended. “We want to put an end to the culture of political violence in Bengal,” Bhattacharya had said on Tuesday.
Veteran Trinamool leader and parliamentary affairs minister in the previous government Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay was abused and threatened at his residence in Kolkata’s Bhabanipur late on Tuesday night by alleged BJP supporters.
“A group of 10 men came to my house and started abusing me. The man who led them was employed by me several years ago. He threatened to kill me if I step out of my home. I have lodged a complaint with the Kalighat police station and also informed the deputy commissioner of police south division,” Chattopadhyay, 82, told The Telegraph Online on Wednesday morning.
He said his son did not go to his workplace on Wednesday. “I did not send my granddaughter to school this morning,” he added.
In North 24-Parganas' Najat, two police officers were injured in firing between two groups late on Tuesday night.
Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has reportedly instructed Bengal chief electoral officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal and the police top brass to immediately arrest those involved in any violence.
Soon after the CEC’s diktat, Kolkata Police commissioner Ajay Nand told the media that 80 persons were arrested in the city, 65 of them in connection with specific cases.
He said the police and the central forces will continue to jointly patrol the city streets.
“Anyone trying to create an environment of threat or terror will be acted against strictly. No one should indulge in any kind of violence or acts that disturb law and order,” Nand said. “No rallies with bulldozers or similar equipment will be allowed.”
"No rallies will be allowed with JCBs [bulldozers or earthmovers] or similar equipment," he said.
The police chief said follow-up action will be taken against JCB owners if they rent their vehicles for such purposes.
In the New Market area on Tuesday, next to the main market, a Trinamool office, a chicken shop and a shop selling children’s clothes were razed to the ground using an earthmover machine by alleged BJP supporters chanting “Jai Shri Ram”.
Picture by: Soumyajit Dey
The videos of the incident were posted on social media, including by Trinamool functionaries who did not mention that the primary target was a party office.
On Wednesday morning, the area remained tense.
The two shopkeepers whose shops were destroyed live on the outskirts of the city and may not be aware of what has happened to their workplace, local sources said.
The extended tin roof and pillars in front of the entrance were strewn on the ground.
“They were looters. They had changed their shirts to fit with the new ruling party,” a shopkeeper doing business in the area for 35 years told The Telegraph Online when asked who had destroyed the shanties.
In south-west Bengal’s Birbhum, superintendent of police Surya Pratap Yadav said four persons have been arrested in connection with the murder of a Trinamool worker in Nanoor.
“Around 45 persons have been arrested in the district so far,” Yadav said.
Birbhum district magistrate Dhaval Jain had a message for parents of young men.
“I am telling the parents to ensure that their young sons do not commit any act that could impact their future. The land of Rabindranath Tagore should remain peaceful,” he said.
On Tuesday, the MLA-elect of Birbhum, the BJP’s Suri Jagannath Chattopadhyay, went around his constituency assuring the residents, both Hindus and Muslims, that they should not live in fear.
He instructed the local police to take action if BJP workers were found assembling near Trinamool offices.
In North Dinajpur’s Chopra, a BJP leader was assaulted by a group of alleged BJP supporters when he stopped them from demanding money from shopkeepers at Kalagachh Bazar.
Below a post sharing the BJP state president's message for peace on social media a user asked : “Can’t we beat them even a little bit?”