A speeding truck reportedly rammed into BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar’s vehicle on NH12 on Saturday night, prompting accusations from the party that it was a “Trinamul conspiracy” to kill him.
The hit reportedly left Sarkar unharmed but his driver injured and the car damaged.
Barasat police sources said the truck driver, reportedly driving without a licence, was arrested on BJP youth wing leader Koushik Majumder’s complaint.
On Sunday, BJP supporters blocked NH12 in Nadia. Sarkar filed a complaint with Santipur police, reportedly claiming it was a “planned attack”. Trinamul’s Naihati MLA Partha Bhowmik dismissed the allegations.
However, Sarkar said: There are obvious reasons to believe that Saturday night’s incident was not an accident. We all watched that truck chasing us suspiciously for a while. I was lucky to escape unhurt only because of the driver’s alertness, who at the last moment drove beyond the edge of the road to save my life. However, he (the driver) suffered injuries as the truck rammed into his side of the vehicle before trying to escape.”
The BJP MP added that Trinamul had been rattled since he won the Lok Sabha election in 2019.
“The ruling party has since been trying to harass me, implicating me in several cases by levelling fake charges that include the murder of MLA Satyajit Biswas. But so far it has been unsuccessful. Now it appears that the party is trying to kill me to stop me politically, but it failed,” he said.
Police sources said prima facie that around 10.30pm, the truck was speeding towards Krishnagar, and in a bid to overtake the MP’s black Scorpio near Hela-Battala area in Barasat town rammed into it. Sarkar had been returning home to Santipur from Calcutta airport.
A senior police official from the Barasat police district said the incident was “prima facie an accident”. “Nevertheless, we are examining all possible aspects,” he said.
In a separate incident, BJP supporters blocked the Minakha-Basanti highway in North 24-Parganas on Sunday morning condemning the murderous attack on BJP leader Feroz Kamal Gazi, popularly known as Babu Master, on Saturday night. Party workers staged demonstrations in front of all police stations under Basirhat subdivision.
Some persons had hurled bombs at Gaji’s car on Basanti highway around 9 pm on Saturday near Lauhati when he was travelling to Calcutta. Gazi, who joined the BJP barely two months ago, and his driver were badly wounded.
BJP’s Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh joined the protest in Basirhat on Sunday and later met additional police super Chandan Ghosh. Sources said Singh handed police a list of 12 suspects. Both police and Singh refused to disclose the names.
