A day after Chandranath Rath, the executive assistant to West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, was shot dead 200 metres away from his residence, his cousin claimed on Thursday that he had been worried over the last few days as he had been getting calls from unknown numbers.
“He had come home yesterday and stayed for three hours. Then, he left for Calcutta. He was very preoccupied. When I asked him when he would return, he said after the oath-taking ceremony. He told me yesterday that 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.
A close aide of Adhikari, who is the frontrunner for the chief minister post, Rath was shot point-blank after his Scorpio SUV was intercepted by motorcycle-borne assailants on Wednesday night. He was in the co-passenger seat.
“I was feeding stray dogs when I suddenly heard screams that shots had been fired. I rushed and saw that a white SUV had been stopped by a silver car. No one was in that car, but in the SUV, one person was crying and was scared to open the door. I urged the person to open the door. We saw one person had collapsed at the back and one in the front seat. We saw that one person was breathing and said that he should be rushed to the hospital. Later, I got to know he was Suvendu Adhikari’s PA,” Susanta Sarkar, a resident who was at the scene, told The Indian Express.
On Thursday, Rath’s body was taken to Barasat Government Medical College and Hospital for a post-mortem examination. Amid a heavy deployment of central forces, several BJP workers assembled at the hospital. Rath’s family members and childhood friends also arrived from Chandipur in Purba Midnapore district.
Rath’s childhood friend, Deb Kumar Jana, said he was still in shock. “We were schoolmates. After he took voluntary retirement from the air force and joined Suvendu Adhikari, he used to be busy. Whenever he got the time, he would speak to us,” Jana said.
Neighbours said they had hardly seen Rath in the locality. Shampa Patra, a resident, said, “They stay in an apartment, so we hardly have any interaction with them. After the shooting, I got a call saying there was a shooting in the area. Later, another person called, saying it was Suvendu Adhikari’s PA who was shot. This area is dimly lit and desolate after sunset. Still, what happened is shocking.”
Adhikari arrived at the morgue on Thursday and condemned the “cold-blooded murder”. “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,” he said.
“He was a dedicated boy and ex-air force. It was a brutal killing. The police are investigating and have detained some people. The CID, forensic officials, the SIT…all are working on the case,” he added. Later in the afternoon, Adhikari left for Ratha’s native place, where his final rites would be performed.
The bike used in the crime has been seized, police sources said, adding that it had been dumped in a garbage dump in the airport area. The bike has now been placed at Madhyamgram police station.
Additional Director General, Criminal Investigation Department, Supratim Sarkar, Deputy Inspector General, Border Security Force, Praveen Kumar, the sub-divisional police officer in charge of the Barasat sub-division visited the crime scene along with other officers.