WB: Prime accused in Canning triple murder was a TMC worker, claims family

TMC panchayat member Swapan Majhi and two party workers Jhantu Halder and Bhootnath Pramanik were shot dead and then hacked by four assailants in Canning, around 50 kms southwest of Kolkata, on Thursday morning

A day after a Trinamool Congress (TMC) panchayat member and two party workers were brutally murdered in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a family member of the prime accused revealed that he too is a TMC worker, the police said on Friday.

Representational image.

The police have lodged a FIR against six persons, but no arrests have been made so far. The prime accused has, however, been identified as Rafikul Sardar and is currently absconding.

TMC panchayat member Swapan Majhi and two party workers Jhantu Halder and Bhootnath Pramanik were shot dead and then hacked by four assailants in Canning, around 50 kms southwest of Kolkata, on Thursday morning.

“Both my son and husband are TMC workers. But they were not associated with Swapan Majhi. They belonged to another faction,” Ayesha Sardar, Rafikul’s mother, said.

The police have visited Rafikul’s house twice after the killings took place, but they are yet to recover the murder weapons.

Meanwhile, the post-mortem report has revealed that while Majhi was shot twice, Pramanik was shot once. But all three were hacked to ensure they died, and the culprits even tried to behead the bodies. The police also recovered a crude bomb from the site of the incident, which they suspect the assailants first hurled to kill the victims.

“First, Majhi was shot twice. When Pramanik and Halder tried to flee, the assailants shot Pramanik. They may have run out of ammunition so they hacked Halder. They hacked all three and tried to behead the bodies,” a police officer said.

While the TMC, the ruling party in West Bengal, has alleged that people backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were behind the murders, the opposition camp hit back by saying that the killings were the result of factional feuds within the TMC ahead of the panchayat polls, which is scheduled in 2023.

State minister Firhad Hakim rubbished the confessions of Rafikul’s mother, and pinned the blame on the BJP.

“Anyone can give such statements. It is the police to find out and the court will decide. The BJP is trying to introduce politics of murder in West Bengal just like Gujarat. We won’t allow that,” Hakim said.

The BJP, however, flagged the statements of the prime accused’s family.

“It is now clear that it was a factional feud of the TMC. The factions wanted to exercise their dominance and take control over the area ahead of the panchayat polls. This probe can’t be done by the police as they have become political slaves of the ruling party. The state government should order a CBI probe,” senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha said.