Krishnagar, Sept. 30: Minister Ujjwal Biswas’s son allegedly poured petrol and set himself ablaze last night after an altercation with his father apparently over the youth’s relationship with a girl.

A police officer said the horticulture minister’s hands were also scalded while trying to save his 22-year-old son at their Krishnagar home. Sayan, who was taken to Shaktinagar district hospital, suffered 85 per cent burns. He was later admitted to a private hospital in Calcutta.

The police and Trinamul leaders in Nadia were tight-lipped about the incident. “We don’t know what forced him to set himself on fire. Security guards at the minister’s house informed us. We went there and found a piece of paper on which it was written in Bengali — ‘No one is to be held responsible for my death’,” a police officer said.

The police also found a plastic bottle that still had some petrol in it.

Trinamul sources close to Biswas said Sayan was in a relationship with a girl from neighbouring Dhubulia but his father was opposed to it. “Last night, Sayan had a quarrel with his father over this. But we never imagined Sayan could do such as thing. Ujjwalda is shattered,” a local Trinamul leader said.

Sayan, a second-year power engineering student at a college in Durgapur, runs an LPG dealership too.

According to the police, the minister was woken up at 2am by shouts of “fire, fire” from neighbours. An aide of the minister said: “Biswas broke open the door and found his son on fire.”

Biswas’s phone was switched off since morning today. Other leaders denied comment.

Kallol Khan, the Trinamul MLA from Nakashipara, said: “Sayan’s condition is critical. Ujjwal is heartbroken as Sayan is his only son.”

Prominent leaders from the district such as Trinamul president Subrata Bakshi and MLAs Tapas Roy, Pundarikakshya Saha and Parthasarathi Chatterjee visited the Calcutta hospital.