“Killing your own people with shotgun just for publicity!” Mamata Banerjee attacks BJP on Siliguri incident

The West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday had alleged that a party worker – Ulen Roy – died during clashes with the police in Siliguri during a party programme. Reacting to the death, chief minister Mamata Banerjee – at a programme in Ranigunj on Tuesday – said, “You are killing your own people with shotguns just for the sake of publicity! Police do not use such guns!”

She said that the BJP calls meetings and kill their own people in those meetings, and then look for publicity. She appealed to the media to constantly check information before reporting. “I know you work under pressure, but verifying facts is important too. It is your responsibility.” Banerjee said the BJP leaders are constantly lying, and that is their main weapon. “To fight them, our main weapon is fast development and progress,” she said at the meeting.

According to the West Bengal Police’s official Twitter account, the post mortem report has mentioned that “death was due to the effects of shotgun injuries”. The tweet further said: “Police do not use shotguns. It’s obvious that during yesterday’s protest in Siliguri, armed persons were brought and they fired from firearms. The deceased received pellet injuries from a shotgun fired from close range by a person standing near the deceased in the protest program. This is unprecedented. Bringing armed persons in protest programs and inciting them to fire is unheard off. There was a malafide intention to create violence by the use of firearms.” The state CID is investigating the incident. The police’s tweet further said: “Truth will come out and strong action will be taken against all those who planned and executed the heinous crime.”

The West Bengal BJP from its official Twitter account wrote on Monday that the BJP worker had died due to police lathicharge. Later, some leaders showed pictures showing pellet injuries. Violence erupted in Siliguri on Monday at a programme of the BJP outside Uttarkanya, the state secretariat of north Bengal. Senior leaders Dilip Ghosh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Tejaswi Surya were part of the marches. Police tried to stop them and used water canons and tear gas. But it soon led to a chaotic situation, and the protestors broke police barricades. Police resorted to lathicharge and BJP leaders alleged that police used violence on a peaceful protest.