Five persons have been arrested over Thursday’s bullet-and-bomb attack on an SUV at a petrol pump in Joynagar that killed three persons, minutes after local Trinamul MLA Biswanath Das had got off the vehicle.
Preliminary investigations indicate all suspects are associated with the ruling party, police sources said on Friday, a day after the attack killed Das’s driver, a Trinamul leader and a resident waiting for the MLA.
Das, who had got off at a Trinamul office barely 2km from the pump in the Durga Nagar area, has alleged he was the target.
Das’s driver Selim Khan alias Babu and party leader Sarifuddin Khan — an accused in two murder cases — were in the car when they were shot dead. The resident was identified as Amin Sardar.
“We examined CCTV footage and arrested five people,” said a police officer. Another six were being quizzed till Friday evening.
One of those held, Abdul Gaffar Mollah, is a close associate of Trinamul’s Joynagar town president Gour Sarkar and brother of local leader Abdul Kahar Mondal, the police officer said.
Asked about the alleged links, Gour claimed he knew Gaffar as “a decent youth with an MCom”.
“The law will take its own course,” Sarkar said.
Asked whether the killers had come looking for Das, the police officer said they were “yet to ascertain whether the MLA was the target”.
“Sarifuddin was a key accused in the murder of Khokan Mondal, a tough with ruling party connections, two years ago. We are yet to determine whether the incident was a revenge attack by Mondal’s gang,” the officer said. Sarifuddin was out on bail.
Public thrashing
A Trinamul leader was thrashed by hundreds of party activists outside Joynagar police station on Friday while the party’s South 24-Parganas’ president Subhashis Chakraborty and youth wing chief Saokat Mollah met police superintendent Ajoy Prasad.
The scenes laid bare a chronic headache for Trinamul: intense bickering. Kalipada Sardar, the local committee president, was beaten up as his faction was suspected to have plotted the attack. Sardar is known for his proximity to Sarkar, the party’s Joynagar chief.
