A 48-year-old Trinamul worker, who was also the husband of a newly elected Trinamul panchayat member, was abducted and murdered in Malda on Tuesday night.

His family members have alleged that the abductors had demanded ransom from them and killed him. Leaders of parties in Opposition have termed the incident as a fallout of acute infighting within Trinamul in the area to gain control over the local panchayat.

Sadek Ali, who ran a sweetmeat shop in Chatar, a village under the Pukuria police station of the district, went missing late on Tuesday evening. Anwara Bibi, his wife, is a newly elected Trinamul member of the Sripur-II panchayat in the Ratua-II block of Malda.

Akratul Ali, the victim’s son, said that his father closed the shop around 9pm on Tuesday.

“He usually returns home in half an hour. However, when he didn’t return home even at 10pm, we started calling him on his phone. He didn’t respond. Around 10.30pm, we received a call from his cell phone. An unidentified person told us to pay Rs 1 lakh in cash if we wanted to see him alive,” said the son.

The ransom call made Ali’s family approach the police.

“On Wednesday morning, we got another call from my father's number. This time, the kidnappers demanded Rs 2 lakh as ransom. After an hour or so, some local residents found my father's body in a bamboo grove. The body bore injury marks on the head and forehead and there were blood stains. We believe he was gruesomely murdered," added Aktarul.

As the news spread, hundreds of villagers gathered at the spot. A police team recovered the body.

Anwara Bibi said that ever since she filed her nomination as a Trinamul candidate in the rural polls, her husband had been getting threats "from some hooligans". "We want police to identify and arrest those who were involved in his murder,” she said.

Ujjwal Dutta, the president of the BJP’s Malda north (organisational) district, said it was a blatant example of Trinamul’s infighting.

“There are two lobbies of Trinamul in the area and both want to grab the local panchayat. It is because of the infighting that a person lost his life. We want the police to do an impartial probe and find out the truth,” he said.

Mottakin Alam, a former Congress MLA, also pointed fingers at Trinamul.

“The competition to capture power at the rural body led to the murder,” he said.

District Trinamul leaders, however, denied the charges of infighting.

“There is no rift within the party. We are confident that the assailants will be arrested soon,” said Abdur Rahim Boxi, the Trinamul district president of Malda.

Police officers probing the case said they are waiting for the post-mortem report.

“We are also gathering information from the victim’s family and neighbours on the case to find out the motive behind the suspected murder,” said an officer.