A day after Suvendu Adhikari’s personal assistant Chandranath Rath was shot dead in Madhyamgram, near Kolkata, the police on Thursday said they had seized the car that had been used to block the road in which Rath’s car was travelling, as well as the motorbike that the assailants rode. The police have also set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising the CID, the Intelligence Bureau, and a Special Task Force.
This came on a day Adhikari claimed that Rath might not have been killed had he not worked for him, while Rath’s mother alleged that the killing was linked to the Trinamool Congress’s defeat in Bhabanipur. “I would not have suffered so much had he died in an accident. He was targeted because he worked for Adhikari,” she told local television channels, adding that she wants the culprits to get a life term and does not want them hanged.
The Governor, meanwhile, has issued a notification dissolving the West Bengal Assembly even as outgoing CM Mamata Banerjee refused to resign, a day before the BJP Legislature Party meets to elect the new CM.
Murder probe
The police said they were scanning CCTV footage and that the Border Security Force (BSF) had been alerted so that the killers cannot cross the border into Bangladesh. “The number plate (of the car seized) has been tampered with and it belongs to someone in Siliguri (in north Bengal). We have seized cartridges and live rounds from the spot. We are processing all the evidence and speaking to the witnesses. Investigation is on,” said DGP Siddh Nath Gupta.
Police sources said the car and the motorbike-borne assailants were present where the shooting took place hours before the incident. “CCTV footage showed that the car was present on the service road at Nowaikhali Bridge about a kilometre and a half from the PO (place of occurrence) about three hours before the incident. Evidence indicates that the assailants were aware of the victim’s movement and were waiting for him. There is also evidence that a recce was made of the area before the assault,” said a senior police officer.
The police said the car used to block Rath’s vehicle was found abandoned near the spot, while the bike was found a few kilometres away in the Gate 2.5 area near Kolkata airport. “The chassis numbers of both the car and the motorbike have been carefully removed. The murder has all the tell-tale signs of professional killers who planned the hit days before, made a recce, waited for the victim, and carried out the murder with precision. They will shortly be arrested,” said an officer.
Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh claimed he was on the phone with Rath when the shooting occurred. “I asked him, ‘What happened, Chandra, are you okay?’, but there was no reply. After a while, I again called him. Someone picked up the phone and said he had been shot.” Ghosh said he immediately called Adhikari, who was on his way back to Kolkata from Contai and rushed to Madhyamgram.
“He had come home yesterday (Tuesday) and stayed for three hours. Then, he left for Kolkata. He was very preoccupied. When I asked him when he would return, he said after the oath-taking ceremony. He told me he was worried because he was getting repeated calls from unknown numbers for the last two to three days. He had given those numbers to the police for tracking,” Rath’s cousin Angshuman Manna told The Indian Express.
Outside the Barasat Medical College and Hospital, where Rath’s body was taken, Adhikari condemned the “cold-blooded murder”, telling reporters, “His only crime was that he was my executive assistant, and he was a part of my team. This was a cold-blooded, planned murder. I am still reeling under the shock that if he was not my aide, if he had not worked for me, if he had not worked in Bhabanipur or Nandigram in this election, he would not have been targeted,” said the BJP leader.
Violence in Howrah, bombs recovered
The situation in the state, meanwhile, remained volatile the day after as sporadic incidents of violence continued to be reported. A clash broke out between BJP and TMC workers in the Chaurabasti area of Shibpur in Howrah district after several country-made bombs went off in the slum, leading to some injuries. The Rapid Action Force was deployed to bring the situation under control, the police said. The BJP claimed two of its workers were injured and subsequently, its local party members gheraoed the Shibpur police station.
“A political clash broke out between two groups, resulting in an injury. The forces immediately reached the scene and brought the situation under control,” said Howrah City Police Commissioner Akhilesh Chaturvedi.
BJP workers in Panihati in North 24 Parganas — from where the newly elected MLA is Ratna Debnath, the mother of the R G Kar rape and murder victim — also alleged that bombs were hurled in the constituency’s Ward No 2 area early Thursday, hours after Rath’s murder.
In Basirhat in North 24 Parganas, the police arrested a person in connection with the shooting of a local BJP worker the night before. The police identified the person injured in the shooting as Rohit Roy, who has been admitted to R G Kar Hospital, while the accused, Jahinur Gazi, was taken to the site of the incident to reconstruct the event, the police said.
In the village of Baitara in Birbhum district’s Nanoor, a drum filled with bombs was recovered, the police said. The bombs were found lying near a playground the night before.