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West Bengal elections: Supreme Court says Malda gherao was 'pre-planned', calls for NIA probe
The court pulled up West Bengal chief secretary for not taking calls of Calcutta HC chief justice over Malda incident and asked him to apologise.
The Supreme Court on Monday said the Malda incident where judicial officers engaged in SIR work were gheraoed for hours, was pre-planned and motivated. The top court also called for the case to be investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) saying the 'local police can't be trusted', PTI reported.
The court ordered 26 people arrested by West Bengal police in connection with Malda incident be interrogated by the NIA, as it also pulled up the Bengal chief secretary SC for not taking calls of Calcutta high court chief justice and asked him to apologise.
Seven judicial officers appointed by the Calcutta High Court were gheraoed by a large mob at Kaliachak last week over deletion of names from the electoral roll after the Special Intensive Revision in poll-bound West Bengal.
Political slugfest over Malda gherao incident
The incident set off a political slugfest between Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and the BJP, with Banerjee alleging that the hostage-taking was pre-planned, HT reported.
“They [BJP] are conspiring to stall the elections. They are flagging one incident and alleging that the law and order have deteriorated across the state. If you allow one incident to happen, the entire state would be maligned.”
Banerjee warned people against taking the law into their own hands. “The CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] and NIA [National Investigation Agency] will arrest you before the polls. They have deleted the names of many voters. Whatever remains will also go away. The law is not in my hands. They have snatched all my powers. The ECI is running a super President’s rule by snatching all my powers,” she said.
Reacting to the incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it as a sign of “maha jungle raj” under the TMC government, PTI reported.
“When even judicial officers are not safe, how can you expect that common people will be safe under TMC rule? What happened in Malda is an example of TMC's maha jungle raj,” Modi said during an election rally in Cooch Behar.
Modi said that “democracy is bleeding every day on the sacred soil of Bengal” and accused the Mamata Banerjee government of being “hell-bent on murdering law and order”., referring to the incident where judges were allegedly held for hours during protests over voter roll revisions.
Malda, a bordering and Muslim-majority district, has the second-highest number of cases under adjudication by judicial officers after Murshidabad. While there are 11,01,145 such cases in Murshidabad, Malda, with 8,28,127 cases, comes second.
