Mamata Banerjee on Sunday alleged that "large stones" were thrown at her car after her visit to the house of a dead Trinamool Congress worker, lashing out at the Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP government in the state.
The former West Bengal CM and two other leaders from her camp—Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen—had been travelling in a car from the house of Birju Deot—a former TMC worker—who had allegedly died due to custodial violence on Friday.
However, her ride from Deot's house at Bijpur in the Kanchrapara area of the North 24 Parganas was cut short by protesters, who have alleged that the TMC supremo had come to the North 24 Parganas area to incite unrest over the custodial killing.
"My head would have exploded. I would have died here. The police are protecting the BJP," she alleged, lashing out at what she called Adhikari's iron fist rule using the police.
She also alleged that the police were complicit in the Sunday protests at Bijapur, claiming that they were doing nothing when the protesters hurled mud, stones, and torn cloth at her car, and shouted "chor, chor (thief, thief)".
Birju Deot's death
Birju, the husband of Jenny Sharma Keot—the former TMC councillor for Ward 23 of the Kanchrapara Municipality—died due to alleged custodial torture at the Halishahar Police Station on Friday.
This comes after he was remanded to five-day police custody in a West Bengal court on various charges, including extortion.
Both Jenny and the TMC have alleged that Birju was beaten up to such an extent that his body bore a number of wounds, due to which he was taken to the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital in Kalyani, where he died.
"There is no such thing as law and order in this state," Mamata allegedly said to the Deot family at their house, as per local media reports.
“An investigation is underway. The exact cause of death will be known after the autopsy report is received,” Amit Kumar Singh, Police Commissioner, Barrackpore, told Times of India.
