Post-poll violence continued in Bengal with two political workers getting killed in two districts on Friday night and local Trinamul leadership being blamed for both.
While a victorious Trinamul candidate was killed allegedly by a faction of his party at Magrahat in South 24-Parganas on Friday night, around the same time a CPM activist was beaten to death in Nadia’s Nakashipara allegedly for working for a Left-backed Independent candidate, who defeated the ruling party nominee.
At Arjunpur village in Magrahat, Mainur Gharami, 41, who successfully fought the gram panchayat election, was shot at from close range by unidentified assailants when he was returning home on Friday night. Before fleeing from the spot, the goons also stabbed him several times to ensure his death. Gharami's party colleague Shahjahan Mollah suffered bullet injuries as he tried to resist the attack. Residents took them to the Diamond Harbour super-speciality hospital, where Gharami was declared dead.
Party insiders in Magrahat claimed Gharami was killed over who would become the gram panchayat chief. Gharami, who won three successive terms, was a strong contender. However, a faction of his party was against him.
A Trinamul worker said: “There are some people in the party who did not want to see Gharami as pradhan. They offered him huge money and asked him to quit the fight for the post of pradhan. He refused and had to pay with his life.”
Block Trinamul leaders, however, refuted the allegation claiming the murder had nothing to do with politics and was related to a dispute over land.
A police officer said a probe had been started and two persons were detained for their suspected involvement in the murder.
In the other incident at Birpur-Sarbari village in Nadia’s Nakashipara, CPM worker Kabir Sheikh, 45, was beaten to death allegedly by some Trinamul workers near his home.
Kabir's family members claimed that he was dragged out of his home when he was having dinner on Friday night by local Trinamul worker Sabdar Sheikh and his aides, and lynched by the mob. They alleged he was lynched because he worked for a Left-backed Independent candidate at Birpur-I gram panchayat, who eventually won the rural poll defeating the Trinamul candidate.
Kabir was found lying unconscious in a pool of blood and taken to the Bethuadahari block hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead.
Kabir's son Samiul alleged that Sabdar and his associates targeted his father and other CPM workers because they worked to ensure the success of the Independent candidate.
“Sabdar Sheikh had attacked us in the past too. As we had campaigned for the Independent candidate, he threatened us with dire consequences. But we had refused to change our stand,” Samiul said.
Contacted, Trinamul’s Nakashipara block committee president Kanishka Chattopadhyay, however, refuted Samiul's charges.
“There was no political reason behind the murder. The victim and the accused were relatives harbouring an old enmity. The murder is a fallout of that personal enmity,” Chattopadhyay said.