Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted former BJP Lok Sabha member from Barrackpore constituency in North 24 Parganas district Arjun Singh protection from any kind of coercive police action including police arrest in connection with a shootout incident last month.
However, the single-judge bench of Justice Sengupta directed Singh to fully cooperate with the police in the process of investigation into the shootout in which a Trinamool Congress leader was injured.
Justice Sengupta also directed the police to submit the CCTV footage of the spot of the shootout for that day to the court by April 17, which has been fixed as the next date of hearing into the matter.
Local Trinamool Congress leaders have alleged that their party leader was injured on the night of March 26, when the shootout took place. The Trinamool leader was allegedly hit by a bullet fired by Singh from his licensed firearm.
However, Singh, from the outset, had been denying the allegations and claimed that as he went with his men to sort out a tension between two groups of workers of a local Meghna Jute Mill, suddenly, the ruling party supporters led by local ruling party leader Namit Singh reached there and started quarreling with him.
He also claimed that the ruling party activists fired at him and he had a narrow escape.
The police also directed Singh to submit his licensed firearms at the local police station. However, Singh refused to do so until he got a clear direction from the court in the matter.
This was not the first time that there has been tension and violence in front of Arjun Singh’s residence. In October last year, Singh was injured, being hit by the splinter of a crude bomb on his limb following an attack on his residence allegedly by local Trinamool Congress activists.
(IANS)
