Two more persons were arrested on Sunday in connection with Thursday’s cow vigilantism incident in Durgapur, but the main accused, local BJP leader Parijat Ganguly, remained at large.
Police said they arrested Kiran Man and Basudeb Badyakar and claimed both were part of the group of cow vigilantes that trussed up and assaulted four cattle traders in the town on Thursday.
With this, the number of those arrested is now four. Earlier, the police arrested two persons — Anish Bhattacharya and Dipak Das.
However, the cop failure in arresting Ganguly, who led the barbaric attack on the Muslim cattle traders in full public view on Thursday, raised questions and criticism from multiple quarters.
A team of delegations from the Congress and the CPM visited the homes of the victims in Jemua village on Sunday separately.
“I am surprised why the main accused Parijat Ganguly of the BJP has not been arrested yet after 72 hours of the incident. Is this a BJP-run state or is Trinamool playing their B-team here? I can’t see any difference between them,” said Prasenjit Puitandy, a secretary of the state unit of the Congress.
CPM West Burdwan secretary and former MLA Gauranga Chatterjee said the people of Durgapur want answers on why Ganguly had not been arrested yet.
“The BJP-RSS sponsored barbaric torture has shocked and shamed all people with good sense. We want to know why the main accused could not be arrested yet. How could the incident happen near the local police station?” asked Chatterjee.
On Saturday, ISF MLA Nawsad Siddique had asked how such attacks on Muslims, common in the BJP-run states, had taken place in Trinamool-ruled Bengal.
On Thursday, a group of BJP activists led by Parijat Ganguly had beat up four persons — all Muslims — after accusing them of being Bangladeshi intruders smuggling cattle.
The cow vigilantes tied up the traders’ hands and paraded them after making them hold their ears in full public view in the Gammon Bridge area under the jurisdiction of the Coke Oven police station in Durgapur town. The incident occurred barely 200 metres from the local police station, but cops did not intervene to rescue the traders.
The attackers also released the cattle from the truck.
The traders had been returning home in a mini truck after purchasing the cattle from a market in Bankura’s Hatashuria.
A video clip of the torture surfaced the social media, prompting Trinamool leaders to launch a protest and lodge a police complaint.
Trinamool leader in Durgapur, Uttam Mukherjee, said all the accused, including Ganguly, would be arrested soon.
“Serious efforts are being made to arrest all the culprits including Ganguly soon. No one will be spared,” said Subir Roy, assistant commissioner of police in Durgapur.
However, a section of senior police officers said the incident could have been averted if cops at the Coke Oven police station had responded promptly as the brutality started unfolding on Thursday.
“This incident has definitely been embarrassing for the government and us. We will probe why the police did not arrive at the spot soon despite the police station being so near,” said a senior police officer in Durgapur.
Durgapur BJP MLA Lakshman Ghorui claimed that Trinamool was trying to give the incident a political colour to appease minorities. “It was not a political incident. If Trinamool wants to give the incident a political colour to use against us for the sake of their minority vote bank, we will also launch a movement,” he said.