The massacre of eight persons at Bogtui near Rampurhat apparently in retaliation for the murder of Trinamul Congress leader Bhadu Sheikh has come as a major embarrassment for the Mamata Banerjee government as it is probably the first such mass killings since the party came into power in 2011.

In the face of Opposition attacks over the killings and governor Jagdeep Dhankhar pulling up the administration, the government and the ruling party are leaving no stone unturned to show the state’s seriousness in dealing with the incidents and finding out if there was any “larger conspiracy” at play to tarnish the image of Bengal and Trinamul.

“It is certainly embarrassing for us as we never expected such a thing to happen in the state. Mamata Banerjee has given clear instruction to treat it as top priority to investigate and unearth the reasons that led to the mass killings. We are fighting both on the administrative level and politically as the Opposition has seen in the incident an opportunity to attack us,” said a senior Trinamul leader.

The promptness of the government in “damage control” was evident soon after the news of the recovery of seven bodies reached the chief minister and top officials on Tuesday.

Within two hours’ notice, Mamata asked her senior minister Firhad Hakim to fly down to Rampurhat.

“A communication in search of a helipad came from Nabanna around 11am (on Tuesday). Within two hours, the minister reached Rampurhat and first went to the hospital and then to the house of the slain party leader (Bhadu Sheikh),” said a police source.

Hakim met and spoke to family members of the slain leader and those whose kin have been allegedly burnt alive in the retaliatory action. While assuring that the government would stand by the family members of those who have been killed, Hakim said: “I rushed here on the direction of our chief minister. First, our man (Bhadu Sheikh) was killed and then houses of our supporters were set on fire.”

Apart from Hakim, senior leaders, including Trinamul’s Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal and the party’s Labhpur MLA Abhijit Sinha, went to Rampurhat. These senior leaders, along with Rampurhat MLA Ashis Banerjee, held a closed-door meeting on the incident.

Mamata Banerjee had all through her campaign against the CPM used to refer to the massacres at Nandigram in East Midnapore, Netai in Jhargram and Suchpur in Birbhum’s Nanoor.

“Till Bogtui happened, we used to take pride in the fact there had been no incidents of massacre since Trinamul assumed power in Bengal. Although those killed belong to our camp, they also include people from the minority community. The worst part is most victims are innocent women and children,” said a senior Trinamul leader.

Before the Bogtui massacre happened, in 2000 Nanoor’s Suchpur had witnessed 11 landless farmers allegedly being hacked to death by CPM men. Mamata had then taken up the Suchpur issue and saw in it a possibility to oust the Left Front from the state.

Similarly, the death of 14 people at Nandigram in 2007 and the killing of 11 Opposition political workers in West Midnapore’s Chhoto Angaria in 2001 had been used by Mamata to showcase the lawlessness under the Left Front.

“The BJP is raising the same point of lawlessness. Senior BJP leaders have already started using social media handles to attack the lawlessness situation in the state. After the murder of two councillors, the incident in Rampurhat has helped the Opposition to use the issue,” said a Trinamul insider.