A Trinamul leader was shot dead inside a party office in East Midnapore’s Panskura on Monday night.

While Trinamul accused the BJP of the murder of Kurban Shah, 32, Trinamul’s working president in Panskura and deputy chief of the Panskura panchayat samiti, the Opposition party in Bengal denied the allegation.

Eyewitnesses said Shah was with party workers around 10pm on Monday night when a gang of five youths on two motorbikes pulled up outside the Mysora party office, stormed the premises and shot Shah point-blank thrice in the head and chest.

Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari, who visited Shah’s family on Tuesday afternoon, said: “These youths were hired killers from Jharkhand and Kharagpur.”

“Former Trinamul leader Anisur Rahman appears to be responsible for this. We have seen CCTV footage of him in the Mechhogram area around 6pm yesterday. He should have not been let out of prison,” he added, referring to Panskura BJP leader Rahman.

Adhikari also suggested that the murder was the result of a tussle between district Trinamul and BJP leaders that started during this year’s Lok Sabha election campaign.

“Shah had got into a standoff with Bharati Ghosh (the BJP’s Ghatal nominee), for which she had filed FIRs against him. Other than payback, their motive seems to be terrorising our party workers,” said Adhikari.

“It is true that I had filed complaints with the police and the Election Commission against Shah for disrupting my campaign, but that does not mean I have anything to do with the murder,” Ghosh, a former IPS officer, said.

“I was in Calcutta at the time of the incident. I am being framed for an intra-party rivalry of their own,” Rahman said.