Kolkata: Political slugfest erupted in West Bengal over an order of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday directing the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take over the probe on the recent clashes of Ram Navami processions in Howrah and Hooghly districts.
According to the Trinamool Congress’s state general secretary and the party spokesman in West Bengal, Kunal Ghosh “since the central agencies always guard the BJP, the goons from Munger in Bihar coming to West Bengal will be relieved”.
“The plot of the BJP and the Union government is simple. First create communal tension and then pave the way for the entry of NIA. The NIA’s entrance is never witnessed in the BJP-ruled states, just as the Central Bureau of Investigation does not arrest Suvendu Adhikari despite being named in the FIR for Narada sting operations,” Ghosh claimed.
On the other hand, BJP’s state president in West Bengal and the party Lok Sabha member Sukanta Majumdar welcomed the Calcutta High Court’s decision to hand over the investigation to NIA. In a Twitter message issued after the order for NIA probe, Majumdar claimed that the incidents of violence were in a way triggered by the West Bengal chief minister through her speech.
“Welcome the Calcutta HC decision to transfer the violence incidents happened on Ram Navami in WB to NIA. These riots were pre-planned and instigated with the support of the TMC by the inflammatory speech of the CM @MamataOfficial,” his Twitter message read.
The leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari also welcomed the Calcutta High Court’s order and claimed that the direction for NIA probe will instill confidence among the people of West Bengal.
Earlier in the day, besides ordering the NIA probe in the matter, the division bench of the High Court’s acting Chief, Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya directed the state police to handover all case-related documents to the NIA within the next two weeks.
(IANS)
