Former CPI-M legislator shot dead in West Bengal

KOLKATA - In an escalation of political violence in West Bengal, former Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) lawmaker Ananda Das was Tuesday shot dead by assailants allegedly close to the Trinamool Congress, hours after a Trinamool worker was killed in Birbhum district, police said.

Das, a four-time legislator from Nanur, was dragged from his house by the assailants who shot him several times, said Birbhum Superintendent of Police Rabindranath Mukherjee.

Das was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“We have received allegations from the CPI-M that the miscreants were close to the Trinamool Congress,” Mukherjee said.

Trouble sparked off at Nanur, under Bolpur sub-division, after a Trinamool worker Sk. Phulu was fatally shot in the afternoon, and the party blamed the CPI-M for the murder.

A little later, a large number of armed Trinamool workers gathered in the area, and ransacked a transport workers’ office of the CPI-M’s labour arm Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), a police official said.

The mob then attacked the CPI-M’s Nanur Zonal Committee office, beating up some of the Communist leaders.

Condemning what he called “a dastardly and planned attack and murder”, CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose alleged that Trinamool Congress was committing atrocities in the area for “quite some time”.

“It is a part of the Trinamool’s efforts to create an atmosphere of anarchy and terror in various parts of the state to destroy democracy,” he said.

He said a team of lawmakers of the ruling Left Front would visit the spot Wednesday.

The CPI-M has called a 12-hour shutdown in Bolpur sub-division Wednesday.

Bose urged the state’s people to strongly protest against the “dastardly attack” and demanded immediate punishment for the “murderers”.