Chinsurah, Aug. 10: The Trinamul vice-chairman of Hooghly’s Tarakeswar municipality was arrested on the charge of leading a group of 50 party activists to ransack the local police station this afternoon.

Uttam Kundu and his aides allegedly vandalised the police station to demand the release of two party supporters arrested this morning for assaulting a CPM worker on July 26. Another Trinamul leader, Jamil Ansari, was also arrested.

The Trinamul leaders and their supporters marched to the police station near Taraknath temple and gheraoed it around 11am. They demanded the release of Tanmoy Pal, 24, and Chiranjib Bhowmik, 22.

They continued demonstrating after the officer-in-charge, Suprakash Patnaik, said he would have to contact his senior officers. But when the sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) arrived from Chandernagore an hour later and sent the accused to the sub-divisional court, the Trinamul agitators broke flowerpots, overturned tables and chairs, and wrenched off telephone wires. “They even threatened to attack me if I stepped outside the police station,” said SDPO Tathagata Basu.

Tapan Dasgupta, the Hooghly Trinamul president, said: “Our party leaders have been told not to intervene in police matters. Those who carried out today’s attacks should be arrested. The party will not tolerate such activities.”