Calcutta, May 21: Suspected Trinamul supporters stormed New Barrackpore police station on the city's northern fringes, switched off power supply so that CCTV cameras could not capture their images and went on the rampage to free a colleague who had just been arrested for attacking a local CPM leader's house.
The 100-odd attackers smashed the windowpanes of the officer-in-charge's room, broke furniture and slammed with bricks the police motorbikes parked on the premises.
For a change, the vandals were unable to free their associate, and police arrested the councillor who had allegedly led the attack.
New Barrackpore councillor Manoj Sarkar and 10 others were arrested for the attack, which came within hours of chief minister Mamata Banerjee accusing the police of "excesses" during the elections.
"Police anek jaigay barabari korechhe central force-er naam korey vote -er samay (The police committed excesses at several places in the name of central forces during polling)," Mamata had told a news conference yesterday after her party's mammoth victory.
The midnight attack proved right fears expressed by a section of the force, which was wary after Mamata, at an election rally earlier this month, called policemen following the rulebook "cowards" and warned they would have to "suffer in the coming days".
"You will get news of attacks on cops tonight," a police inspector deployed outside the Netaji Indoor Stadium counting centre had told this newspaper yesterday. The New Barrackpore police station was stormed eight hours later.
The 11 arrested men were produced in Barrackpore court and will be in jail custody at least till Monday.
The raid on the police station followed an attack on a CPM leader's house off the Madhyamgram-Sodepur Road, which is part of the Dum Dum North constituency that Trinamul minister Chandrima Bhattacharya lost by 5,000 votes to Tanmoy Bhattacharya of the CPM.
"Around 11.10pm yesterday, a stone struck my window. There was commotion outside. They were shouting expletives. They were asking me to come out," said Manik Dutta Gupta, a member of the CPM's New Barrackpore (West) local committee who had played an active role in the elections.
"We switched off all the lights and took shelter in the bedroom. Some of the attackers climbed onto the roof. They were banging on the wooden door on the terrace.... I moved to the drawing room with my wife Kakali and son Abhishek," he added.
The attackers broke open the terrace door and came down the stairs into the house, where they smashed the washbasin in the dining room and damaged furniture.
"We were so scared. My son, who passed the higher secondary examination this year, started crying. He took shelter under a sofa," recounted Dutta Gupta, who makes a living as a private tutor.
"They wrenched off the window frame. Some of them spotted me and my wife and started shouting ' Oi to okhane lukiye achhe... tene bar kar oder (They are hiding there... drag them out)'."
The couple pressed themselves against the door as the attackers kicked it, trying to break it down.
"I managed to make two phone calls to the secretary of the local committee and the newly elected MLA, Bhattacharya, who informed the police. Four officers from New Barrackpore police station arrived. We were lucky because the Trinamul men were about to enter the drawing room," Dutta Gupta said.
His wife, a homemaker, said she saw councillor Manoj Sarkar instigating the mob. "I asked Manoj why he was telling the youths to attack us," Kakali said. "He said the central forces had demolished a Trinamul camp office because my husband had pointed out that it was within 100 metres of the polling booth."
The attackers did not flee at the sight of the policemen, scuffling with them instead. The police picked up one of them and took him to the police station.
More than 100 Trinamul supporters followed soon after and stormed the police station.
"It was around 12.10am," said an officer at New Barrackpore police station. "They first switched off the main switch and started hurling bricks. Armed with sticks and rods, they smashed the windowpanes. Some of them started damaging the motorcycles. Initially, we were dumbstruck and outnumbered. We informed our colleagues who were on patrol duty. As they arrived, we chased the attackers away. The rampage continued for 30 minutes and the situation was brought under control after Rapid Action Force personnel arrived," he said.
Asked, minister Jyotipriya Mullick, Trinamul's North 24-Parganas president, said: "The police have been asked to take all necessary steps against the accused."
