Dilip Ghosh to Amit Shah: Bengal is being turned into “a fertile breeding ground for terrorism”

West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Dilip Ghosh has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention to “restore law and order” in the state. He wrote the letter with reference to the arrests of six Al-Qaeda suspects from Murshidabad’s Raninagar on Saturday by the National Investigating Agency. He also alleged that Maoist activities were increasing in Bengal.

In a letter dated September 22, Ghosh – the MP from Midnapore – alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government has turned the state “into a fertile breeding ground for terrorism”.

“Under the TMC rule, West Bengal has seen the blossoming of illegal bomb and weapon making industry,” he said in his letter. “Many madrasas, which are supposed to be centres of learning, have turned into factories of radicalisation by terror outfits. Thus, the TMC has for its petty political considerations put the security of our nation at great risk,” he wrote.

Ghosh added in his letter that the arrests in Murshidabad were not “one-off occurrence” and that “over the past few years, there has been a rapid growth in the activity of notorious terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh in the state”. He said that the policy of “overt appeasement by the TMC to retain its vote bank has enabled radical, Islamic terror outfits to carry on their nefarious activities with little interference”.

The Bengal BJP chief also claimed that there has been a resurgence of Maoist activities in Jangalmahal. He mentioned the induction of Chhatradhar Mahato in the Trinamool Congress. Mahato was part of a frontal organisation said to be backed by the Maoists, had been arrested under UAPA, served his sentence and has now been released.  Ghosh added that the killing of BJP workers by the Trinamool Congress and the violence by the party in the past elections “clearly show that the TMC is likely to use these disruptive forces to ensure free and fair elections are not possible in West Bengal.

He urged the Union Home Minister to create conditions for citizens to vote “fearlessly” and to restore law and order in Bengal.