Calcutta, April 2: Hours before the chief minister was to address an election rally in South 24-Parganas’ Baruipur this afternoon, a Trinamul Congress worker was found murdered at the construction site of a multi-storeyed building.
Police said the body of Sanjoy Sau, 34, who went missing yesterday, bore multiple stab wounds. It had been dumped in the building’s lift shaft, whose base was filled with water.
Police dogs, sent to Bhattacharjee Para from Calcutta, about 30 km away, sniffed here and there but could not provide any particular lead. No one has been arrested yet.
Local Trinamul MLA Arup Bhadra alleged that Sanjoy was killed by CPM workers.
CPM MP from Jadavpur Sujan Chakraborty, who visited the place, turned the tables on him. “The murder is the fallout of Trinamul infighting,” he said. “We have no base in Baruipur town. Trinamul has a say in everything ? real estate or whatever.”
Trinamul sources said Sanjoy had a hand in the real estate business, now on a high on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there might have been a dispute over profit sharing.
The area, traditionally a Congress stronghold, is now pro-Trinamul. Besides having an MLA from Baruipur, it controls the local municipality.
Milu Guha Thakurta, a Trinamul commissioner of the civic body, today said she would resign tomorrow in protest against the murder. “I am in no mood to continue as commissioner after Sanjoy’s brutal death,” she said.
With the news of the death, tension spread and Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed. Trinamul has called a 12-hour bandh tomorrow.
Additional superintendent of police, rural, A.K. Prasad, who is camping there, said a murder case has been initiated on the basis of a complaint lodged by Sanjoy’s father Mohan. “Preliminary investigation suggests that the mastermind was someone known to him,” Prasad said.
Sanjoy, a caretaker of Rabindra Bhavan under Baruipur municipality, left home after lunch yesterday but did not return home. Local residents spotted his body this morning.
At the rally, in which the CPM observed silence for the dead Trinamul worker, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did not utter a word on the murder.
Chakraborty said only the CPM wants prosperity in the the area.