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Cops grill Abhishek Banerjee for 5 hours in Camac Street case; he calls it political vendetta
Abhishek Banerjee was summoned in connection with a clash between his supporters with officials who went to his Camac Street office to remove an unauthorised billboard
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Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday accused the West Bengal’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of carrying out political vendetta against him after he was questioned by the Kolkata police for over five hours at the Shakespeare Sarani police station in the state capital.
Banerjee, who was summoned to the police station in connection with a clash between his supporters with government officials who went to his Camac Street office to remove an unauthorised billboard on August 27.
“This is political vendetta. The CM is threatening everybody in a tone that indicates that he will have the last word in democracy. Why are they (BJP) so afraid of the TMC? Why are they keen on taking over our offices,” Banerjee told the media after emerging from the Shakespeare Sarani police station at about 5:45pm.
Banerjee was at the station by about 12:20pm.
“People are not fools. They can see the truth. If EVMs of some assembly seats are examined now, people will know how the BJP came to power,” Banerjee said, referring to the TMC’s allegation that electoral malpractices led to the BJP victory in the state elections in April.
The police have already arrested 13 people on charges of attacking police and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) personnel on August 27. According to the police, Banerjee, his secretary Sumit Roy, TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien, former MLA and retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Humayun Kabir and senior TMC leader Baishyanar Chatterjee are named in three separate first information reports (FIRs) registered following the incident including one that accuses the TMC leaders of sexual harasssment of females police personnel, a non-bailable offence.
Banerjee trashed the charges. “Nobody was molested. On the contrary, videos show police dragging our workers down the staircase. Tariq, one of our arrested workers, was tortured in custody. Three more were arrested without notices being served to them as per law. There are many procedural lapses,” Banerjee said.
To be sure, the TMC leader stressed that he didn’t have anything against the police officers who questioned him. “I am not blaming the officers who questioned me today. They have to do their job. I have not been served any notice for arrest. Let them charge me under non-bailable sections,” he added.
Fire department officers inspected the fire fighting system at the Camac Street building on Monday and told reporters that alarms and sprinklers were not working properly.
“Efforts were made yesterday to harass our workers at our party office. Had the administration shown this eagerness to conduct fire audits earlier, so many people wouldn’t have died at the two hotels in Tarapith and Kolkata. Or, so many files wouldn’t have been destroyed in a mysterious fire at the Alipore administrative building after the BJP came to power,” Banerjee said.
The Kolkata police hasn’t commented on his remarks.
