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2 Trinamool leaders appear before Bengal CID in BJP leader’s murder probe
The two senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders were however not questioned. Their personal appearance was recorded at an office of the Barrackpore police and they left after 30 minutes.
The outgoing chairman of Barrackpore municipality, Uttam Das, and his counterpart in Titagarh municipality, Prashanta Choudhury, appeared before the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Thursday in connection with the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manish Shukla.
The 39-year-old leader was gunned down on BT Road at Titagarh in North 24 Parganas district on the night of October 4.
The two senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders were however not questioned. Their personal appearance was recorded at an office of the Barrackpore police and they left after 30 minutes.
An officer aware of the development said on condition of anonymity that Das and Choudhury’s name were put in the First Information Report (FIR) on the basis of a complaint filed by the victim’s father Chandramani Shukla.
The two TMC leaders had denied the allegation after the murder, saying the BJP’s Barrackpore Lok Sabha MP Arjun Singh accused them because they built up movements to stop the BJP from making further inroads in the district before the 2019 assembly election.
“There was an internal squabble in the district BJP unit,” said Das.
Dismissing this, Singh said, “Calling the two TMC leaders was an eyewash. The government is shielding the real killers of Shukla. Only a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can reveal the truth.”
Singh and Shukla both left the Trinamool and joined the BJP in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Singh made news by defeating TMC’s sitting MP Dinesh Trivedi in the Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat in 2019.
BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya also demanded a CBI probe on Thursday, alleging that the hitmen came from Bangladesh.
“People involved in trans-border smuggling are directly involved in Shukla’s murder,” he said.
The Barrackpore court on Thursday issued an order to produce Subodh Singh, a convict lodged at Nalanda Jail in Bihar. He is a prime suspect in this case.
A few days ago, a CID team went to Bihar to interrogate him. It is suspected that though Singh is lodged in jail he made phone calls to the shooters. The CID team wanted to bring Singh to Kolkata for interrogation but the Bihar Police turned down the request.
Singh is involved in dacoities and murders in several states, including Bengal.
Last Thursday, the CID arrested Subodh Yadav, a resident of Barrackpore. This was the fourth arrest since early October 6. Three suspects, Muhammad Khurram, Sheikh Gulab and Muhammad Nasir Khan were arrested earlier.
A day after the murder, the West Bengal Police said personal enmity could have led to the killing.
