Security breach: Glare on calls to BJP leader

Amira Khatun (in red sari) and Rabia on Saturday 

KOUSIK SEN, TT, Feb 25, 2018, Raiganj: Police have claimed that the two sisters arrested for breaching the Bengal chief minister's security at Hemtabad on February 22 seemed to have spoken to a BJP leader many times ahead of the duo's visit to Mamata Banerjee venue.

Rabia and Amira Khatun, who hail from Rasakhawa under Karandighi police station of North Dinajpur district, had breached the security cover and tried to reach near Mamata while she was delivering a speech.

While Rabia managed to reach the dais, Amira was stopped by security personnel near the ramp leading to the stage. They wanted to appeal to the chief minister to ensure exemplary punishment to all those who had murdered their father in 2015, the duo claimed after their arrest.

The police seized a cellphone from Rabia and Amira and checked its call records.

"The records have revealed that a number of calls were made from the phone to a BJP leader in their locality, particularly in the days ahead of the chief minister's meeting. The investigators are now trying to know the purpose of the calls," said a source

Earlier, senior police and intelligence officers had said they suspected that the sisters had been instigated by some person or organisation to breach the chief minister's security.

When the police asked Rabia about the calls, she said the cellphone belonged to one of her other seven sisters (not Amira) and she had brought it with her to the meeting.

"Rabia has said her sister (to whom the phone belongs) might have called the BJP leader to request him for a job or some other purposes. She has claimed she has no inkling of such calls," the source said.

The police are trying to find out the phone's location when the calls were made and whether the caller was Rabia or somebody else from her family. They are also checking out the duration of the calls.

There are nine sisters and three brothers in the family.

A senior police officer said the investigators suspected the sisters were sent to create chaos at the meeting.

A show-cause notice was served on a deputy superintendent of police and an inspector of police for dereliction of duty. Both of them were deputed at the venue in Hemtabad, near the bamboo barricade that separated the dais from the crowd.

Asked about the purported calls to a BJP leader, Nirmal Dam, the North Dinajpur district president of the party, said: "As a political party, the BJP never wants a chief minister's security to be breached. The BJP would never indulge in a cheap gimmick by sending someone to a chief minister's dais to attract her attention. But we have noticed in recent past that many of our workers are implicated in false cases. If anything of that sort happens, we will launch a movement."