A three-year-old girl playing in the veranda of her home at political violence-scarred Khejuri in East Midnapore allegedly suffered a bullet injury in her back as Trinamul and BJP activists clashed in the neighbourhood on Monday evening.
While the girl’s family, known to be BJP sympathisers, alleged that she had been hit by a stray bullet, Trinamul, police and doctors at the local hospital claimed that she had not suffered a bullet injury.
“I was cooking dinner last night while she was playing in the veranda. My husband was not at home. Suddenly, I heard a scream and rushed out to find my daughter bleeding,” the girl’s mother, Rina Doloi, said.
Mantu Doloi, the girl’s father who works at a fishery and is known to be a BJP member, alleged that his daughter had borne the brunt of the fierce rivalry between the BJP and Trinamul, which had intensified in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha elections.
The police said no bullet was involved. “According to the doctor’s report, the injury is an old abrasion. The bullet that was claimed to have been recovered from the house (by the family) does not have any deformation, which generally happens when it is fired,” said a police officer in Khejuri.
Contai hospital superintendent Sabyasachi Chakraborty said: “A surgeon examined the girl. The injury apparently was not caused by a bullet. But as the patient’s relatives insisted that it was a bullet injury, we have taken tissue samples and sent them for a forensic examination. Since the relatives told us the injury occurred yesterday, we are treating it as an old wound.”
Trinamul sources claimed that the BJP was instigating violence and that the girl had not suffered a bullet injury.