BJP leaders try to enter riot-hit areas, arrested

Kolkata: The police arrested some prominent BJP leaders, including MP Roopa Ganguly and Locket Chatterjee on Friday morning to prevent them from visiting Basirhat, that has been rocked by communal violence over a controversial Facebook post.Later in the day, the Mamata Banerjee government shunted out the inspector in charge (IC) of Basirhat police station and appointed the IC of Duttapukur police station as the Basirhat IC.

A senior official in the home department said that Nasim Akhtar, the IC of Basirhat had been shunted and Biswajit Bandopadhyay who was the IC of Duttapukur police station had taken his place.

In the morning, BJP MP Roopa Ganguly and his party colleague Locket Chatterjee were stopped at Michael Nagar near Kolkata airport. When Ms Ganguly and Ms Chatterjee insisted that they would go and tried to drove their vehicles crossing the cordon, they were arrested. Both of them however were released after a few hours.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said, "The government is saying that the Opposition parties should cooperate with them. But actually they do not want any cooperation. Our leaders were planning to travel there trying to maintain peace. But we were forcibly stooped."

Mr Ghosh announced that the party would hold a rally from the BJP party office near College Street to Dharmatala on Saturday, condemning the police’s act of stopping their delegation. "We will meet governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and submit a deputation to him demanding the imposition of Article 356 of the Indian Constitution," Mr Ghosh said.

Earlier, the police had also prevented a team of Left leaders led by Lok Sabha MP Md Salim and a Congress team led by state president Adhir Chowdhury from reaching the troubled spot. The Left team was obstructed at Ashoknagar, and the Congress team was intercepted at Barasat. "If the chief minister had a real intention of solving the crisis in Basirhat, she could have called the Opposition at the discussion table," Mr Chowdhury said.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had appealed to all Opposition parties not to travel to Basirhat at this juncture and do so only after the situation turned peaceful. "Section 144 has been imposed there. I am the district president of North 24 Parganas. But I did not venture there as the chief minister has appealed not to go there in the current situation," Jyotipriya Mallick, Trinamul Congress district president, North 24 Parganas, said.

Basirhat was more or less peaceful on Friday, after meetings between the locals and the police on Thursday night. A few shops opened in Maitra some areas on Friday morning.