The National Investigation Agency team probing the attack on judicial officers in Mothabari of Malda in north Bengal has informed a special court that a section of the protesters were forced to participate in the agitation.

Sources said the NIA team informed the court the mob that had blocked the safe passage of the judicial officers included a section of the deleted voters as well as booth-level officers working on preparing a fool-proof voters list since the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was announced last October.

NIA sources claimed that Golam Rabbani, an elected gram member of the Mothabari gram panchayat from the ISF, had held a meeting on March 31, a day before the incident.

Deleted voters were threatened and forced to attend the protest.

The NIA, sources said, also claimed that till 11.30pm on the night of April 1, hardly any efforts were made to rescue the judicial officers.

On the night of April 1, seven judicial officers involved in the process of verifying adjudicated voters were held hostage at the office of the block development officer’s office of Kaliaganj block-I for hours with no efforts to rescue them till late into the night.

Along with Rabbani two Congress workers, Sahadat Hossain and Asif Sheikh, were arrested on Monday for their alleged involvement in the Mothabari violence.

The Congress candidate from Mothabari, Sayem Chowdhury, was questioned along with the other three on Sunday night. Chowdhury was later released, the others were arrested.

The Supreme Court had on Monday ordered that the enhanced security for judicial officers involved in the SIR process would continue till further orders.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi instructed the NIA to submit a report on the “political affiliations” of those found involved in the attack.