The police in West Bengal posted a rare status update on Twitter on Friday as a political row triggered by the horrific murder of a family of three in Murshidabad scaled up following the death of a priest in the Nadia district. Allegations of political violence have been flying in the charged build-up to the Bengal assembly polls in 2021 ever since the BJP snatched 16 seats from the Trinamool in parliamentary polls earlier this year.
two days after a 35-year-old schoolmaster, his pregnant partner and their six-year-old boy were chopped to death in their house in Murshidabad district, the body of a 42-year-old priest who had been missing since Monday, was found dead on the banks of a river in Nadia on Thursday.
Shortly after his body was recovered, BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar stated that he was a social worker and was murdered because of his political ties. The statement was supported by Union Minister Babul Supriyo.
With the BJP stepping up allegations of escalating political violence, West Bengal Police issued a clarification, saying the murders in Murshidabad had “nothing to do with politics”.
The bodies of Bandhu Prakash Pal, a 35-year-old primary school teacher, his wife, 30, and son Arya were located in different parts of their blood-splattered house in Jiaganj, approximately 210 km from Kolkata, nearby noon on the day Vijayadashami and Dussehra were being feasted. The woman was reported to be pregnant.
Babul Supriyo joined several BJP leaders to condemn the incident, who said Bandhu Pal had recently listed with the party’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and linked it with the priest’s death in Nadia.
“Supriyo Banerjee, a Hindu clergyman and BJP candidate from Nadia was cruelly killed. Eight personalities have now been shot in the last 4days. People of Bengal will take revenge~CHECK~ Wait&Watch,” the union minister had said.
Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar had also stepped into the row. He said Thursday evening that there must be no cover-up in the investigation into the case and it “cannot be brushed under the carpet”. He also displayed consternation over the “quietness” of the Mamata Banerjee government.
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress answered that the Governor is “converging legal Laxman Rekha’s” and implied he must hold an eye on violations in Tripura, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh alternately.
