Unidentified persons on Sunday afternoon entered the gates of the ancestral house of Cooch Behar district Trinamul president Partha Pratim Roy at Jiranpur, some 18km from district headquarters, fired in the air several times and left.

Roy was away in Cooch Behar town at the time of the incident but his elderly parents were at home.

Police are trying to ascertain the cause of this attack. Roy said he had no answers.

Senior police officers rushed to the spot and recovered empty cartridge shells from the spot. Roy’s father has filed a complaint and a probe has started. No one has been reported injured so far.

“Around 2pm, I received a phone call from my father who told me that three-four people entered the front area of our house and fired bullets. I immediately rushed home with some party workers. Both my parents are perturbed. I have no inkling as to why some people would organise such an attack,” said the district Trinamul chief.

Roy added that he had come to know that the intruders were commuting in a Maruti van. “As they were fleeing, my father saw them getting into the van, but could not identify any of them,” said Roy.

The incident sparked tension in the area. A number of local Trinamul leaders and supporters visited Roy.

During the past few years, violence has erupted in the district owing to the acute infighting within Trinamul. Internal feuds were also considered a key reason for the party’s poor performance at the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections.

“But such indiscriminate firing, that too, at the district president’s house, is unprecedented. We doubt if it has any connection with the party. We hope the police find out who all were behind this and nab them,” said a senior Trinamul leader.

Last month, a self-styled leader of the banned terror outfit Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Daosar Langkam Koch, had issued a statement where he had accused Roy and Binoy Krishna Burman, Trinamul’s district chairman and a former state minister, of trying to dilute their demand for separate statehood. The two Trinamul leaders should start working towards separate statehood or face the consequences, the KLO leader had said in the statement.

“Our officers are exploring all angles. We are also trying to find out the type of firearms used. Security arrangements have been made in the area,” said a senior police officer.