Five Killed In Cooch Behar On Poll Day Yesterday

Five Killed In Cooch Behar On Poll Day Yesterday

Tension has been mounting in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar over the past few days and on Saturday, the district witnessed the worst violence the state reported in the first four phases of the vote, which left five people dead.

The day began with the death of an 18-year-old voter, Ananda Barman, who was shot and killed near a voting booth in the Sitalkuchi Assembly constituency. While his family members claimed to be supporters of the BJP, the TMC has also claimed that the deceased was their supporter.

Just hours later, four people were killed when central paramilitary forces opened fire on a gathering in front of a voting booth in Sitalkuchi. The incident took place in the Jorpatki area.

Those killed in the CISF shooting have been identified as Hamidul Haque, Haminul Haque, Manirul Haque and Noor Alam.

“The central forces opened fire without any provocation. They are working in conjunction with the BJP. This dismissal happened only because they wanted to scare our voters, ”alleged Partha Pratim Roy, TMC’s Sitalkuchi candidate and chairman of the party’s Cooch Behar district unit.

According to sources in the Cooch Behar district administration, personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) opened the fire.

However, Cooch Behar BJP deputy Lok Sabha Nishith Pramanik, who is also competing from the Dinhata Assembly seat, blamed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the provocation. “It is the result of the way the chief minister has been provoking her supporters against the central paramilitary forces,” Pramanik said.

The district administration alleged that the personnel resorted to shooting in self-defense after perceiving the possibility that their weapons were taken away.

The Election Commission of India has requested a “report of action taken” from the district authorities.

Tension across the district had risen over the past week. On Wednesday, there were allegations that the TMC mounted an attack on a rally by the chairman of the BJP state unit, Dilip Ghosh, in the Sitalkuchi area. Ghosh’s convoy was also attacked on its way from Sitai to Mathabhanga. The windows of his car were shattered and Ghosh suffered minor bruises.

On Thursday night, TMC’s Mathabhanga candidate Girindranath Barman was attacked by an alleged BJP supporter. He had to be hospitalized to have his head injuries treated. On Thursday, a 14-year-old boy also suffered splinter injuries after a bomb exploded near him.

Cooch Behar has been the district most devastated by violence in West Bengal since 2017, initially due to TMC infighting and then due to clashes between the TMC and the BJP after 2018 panchayat elections. In 2019, the leader TMC’s ejected youth wing Nishith Pramanik joined the BJP and won from the Cooch Behar seat, defeating TMC’s Partha Pratim Roy.

Local residents said that of the nine Assembly seats in the district, the TMC had its best chances in Sitalkuchi and Sitai, and was likely to host a contest in Tufanganj and Mekliganj. The BJPs were considered to have an advantage over the TMC in the rest of the five seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC held a slight advantage of about 1,200 votes over the BJP in the Sitalkuchi assembly segment of Cooch Behar Lok Sabha.