The police Sumo that was smashed. (below) A special security unit officer after the attack. Pictures by Indrajit Roy

Santiniketan, Dec. 2: An officer of the special security unit of Bengal police, on a recce of roads leading to Santiniketan ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit on December 6, was pulled out of his car and beaten up by Citu members who also smashed the windscreen.

Around 12.30pm, a Tata Sumo with a police sticker pasted on its windscreen was circling Bolpur town. Inside were four sub-inspectors in safari suits — their uniform — and carrying 9mm pistols.

Sources said the team was in Bolpur to prepare a security report for inspector-general A.K. Maliwal, scheduled to visit in the next two days to oversee preparations for the Prime Minister’s Visva-Bharati trip.

The vehicle was stopped as it was passing a taxi stand, by about 25 drivers, most of them Citu members. Drivers of buses and taxis in Bolpur, affiliated to Citu and Intuc, had started a two-day strike in protest against a bus driver’s arrest after an accident in Burdwan two days ago.

“One of the protesters reached inside in a flash and snatched the key from the dashboard. Then the agitators asked the driver to get off and announced that there was a strike and no vehicles were allowed to pass,” one of the four officers said, on condition of anonymity.

The officer said one of his colleagues told the protesters the driver would not drive the hired vehicle any longer.

“My colleague reasoned that he would drive instead. But when he went and sat in the driver’s seat, one of the agitators hurled a brick at the windscreen, shattering it. Two of us received minor injuries from flying shards of glass,” the officer said.

A group of protesters then forced open the driver’s door, dragged the officer out and rained blows on him.

“Some them also tried to snatch my colleague’s purse. Till then, we were restrained but after they beat up our colleague, we started behaving like policemen and chased them away,” the officer said.

The four then took the damaged Sumo to Bolpur police station and made a complaint. “We also informed our superiors in Calcutta,” the officer added.

Birbhum superintendent of police L.N. Meena confirmed this. “We have received a complaint and are carrying out raids to nab the culprits,” he said.

Local Citu leaders denied calling a strike. “If any of our workers were involved in today’s incident, we have asked the police to take strong action against them,” said Samir Bhattacharya, the secretary of Citu’s Bolpur unit.

Raised under Maliwal, the special security unit is a de- dicated squad of young officers trained to handle VVIP security.

“These officers are trained to evaluate the threat in a particular place and look for loopholes in a system before drawing up the security blue-print,” a police officer said. These officers are not given other policing jobs, such as maintaining law and order.

The unit top brass today called up the Birbhum superintendent and asked him to ensure such incidents are not repeated.