A Trinamul Congress worker Nazrul Molla was gunned down at his home a little after midnight on Wednesday in Bhangar area in South 24 Parganas. An important local CPI(M) leader of South 24 Parganas district Sattar Molla along with four party candidates for the panchayat elections were arrested by the police. The CPI(M) leadership alleged that they were falsely implicated in the case. The murder and subsequent arrests in the politically volatile Bhangar only two days before panchayat election in the district sent shockwaves in the region.
According to the wife of the slain man Lekjan Bibi, two men with firearms stormed into their house in Ghungriait village in Bhangar.
They called out Nazrul who was sleeping in the verandah. Even before he could run for cover, the assailants pumped bullets in him. Nazrul’s brother Mohsin Molla filed an FIR in Bhangar police station in which he named Sattar and some other local CPI(M) men alleging that they had hatched a conspiracy to kill his brother.
Mayor Sovan Chatterjee claimed that Nazrul’s was a pre-meditated murder and Sattar and his associates were behind the crime. “The CPI(M) has no scope of winning in Bhangar. In desperation, they killed Nazrul two days before the panchayat polls,” he added. Powerful local Trinamul Congress leader Arabul Islam alleged that Nazrul was killed because the CPI(M) felt that it would not be able to capture turf unless he was eliminated.
The police arrested Sattar from his home in a neighbouring village in early hours of Wednesday. Five other persons were also arrested. Four of them are CPI(M) panchayat candidates and the other is the husband of a panchayat candidate.
Outside Bhangar police station, CPI(M) supporters led by South 24 Parganas district secretary Sujan Chakraborty and senior leader Abdur Rezzak Molla organised protest against Sattar’s arrest. Soon, a group of local Trinamul Congress workers also staged a protest demanding exemplary punishment for CPI(M) leaders. Mr Molla said he had grown old and it was Sattar who was managing the affairs of the party in Bangar area. “The Trinamul Congress realised that it would not be able to win Bhangar without removing Sattar from the scene. Sattar had been framed in a false case but I am sure that one day the conspiracy will be laid bare,” he added.
Rejecting the Trinamul claim that Nazrul was an active party workers, Mr Chakraborty said that on the contrary the victim was sore with the ruling party because recently he was made to pay a hefty fine over a dispute in a salishi sabha which was organised by local Trinamul Congress leaders. In the afternoon, Sattar and five other accused were produced in the Baruipur CJM court which sent Sattar to 14-day judicial custody.