Left nominees thrashed - Trinamul mob enters BDO office campus in Cooch Behar and assaults 65 Left candidates

An alleged Trinamul activist chases away Left nominees outside the Cooch Behar block I BDO’s office on Wednesday. Picture by Main Uddin Chist

TT, Cooch Behar, June 5: Several hundred alleged Trinamul activists stormed a BDO office campus, near Cooch Behar town, today and thrashed around 60 Left candidates who had come to file their nominations.

Sixty-five Left candidates and proposers — of the CPM and Forward Bloc — had arrived in a bus around 2.30pm.

When they entered the BDO’s office campus, alleged Trinamul supporters possibly did not see them owing to another scuffle that had happened barely 15 minutes ago.

But the ruling party’s activists, many of whom were gathered at the party office barely 500m from the Cooch Behar block I BDO office, came to know soon and barged into the campus.

Left supporters later said of nearly 20 policemen present on the BDO campus, nobody came to stop the violence.

Before the attack on the Left supporters, alleged Trinamul activists assaulted a BJP gram panchayat candidate who had come to file his nomination — Cooch Behar will vote in the last phase on July 9.

While the alleged Trinamul activists were beating up the BJP candidate, several photographers and journalists reached the spot, barely 400m from the BDO’s office, and started clicking photographs. The Trinamul supporters then allegedly attacked the scribes.

But soon, more people arrived at the spot. The alleged Trinamul activists then dispersed. But in the melee, the Trinamul activists left the BDO’s office unguarded — they had been keeping a watch since morning — and the bus carrying the Left candidates reached the BDO’s office at this juncture.

Akshay Thakur, the CPM MLA from Cooch Behar (South), who was waiting outside the BDO’s office, was also assaulted.

Thakur said: “Our Left Front candidates had gathered at the party offices here and had arrived at the Dhaluabari office. After our people entered the campus of the BDO office, about 200 Trinamul supporters suddenly attacked them. They began beating them with lathis, slapping and punching them. All our candidates scattered and ran for safety. I was standing outside when the mob came out of the campus and attacked me. They smashed my car and beat up the others who were with me.”

Thakur said a complaint had been lodged with the Cooch Behar Sadar police station.

Fifteen people were arrested later in the day.

“We will sit on a dharna till the administration ensures that the panchayat polls are peaceful, free and fair,” Thakur said outside the district magistrate’s office.

Trinamul has denied any hand in the attack. Rabindranath Ghosh, the Trinamul MLA from Natabari and district party president, blamed the Left Front. “They brought their own people and staged the attack to discredit us. We had nothing to do with the incident. The CPM and the Forward Bloc do not want peaceful polls and are creating an atmosphere of tension,” he said.