Mob attacks police team in Bengal, 11 cops injured

KOLKATA - At least eleven policemen, including one officer, were injured in West Bengal’s North 24-Parganas district Saturday in attack by locals during a security check prior to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s visit Sunday.

“Acting on specific inputs that some miscreants are hiding with arms in Dugdia village near Barasat, a police team raided the area on Friday night. When the police were busy arresting the miscreants and recovering arms, some armed villagers attacked them,” a senior police officer said.

“At least eleven policemen were injured. Inspector in charge of Barasat Amol Sarkar, who was leading the team, was rushed to hospital with critical injuries,” he said.

Villagers, however, alleged that police entered the village in the wee hours of Saturday and arrested some innocent locals.

Protesting regular raids in the area, the irate villagers surrounded the cops and assaulted them.

The Trinamool Congress legislator from Gaighata in North 24-Parganas, Jyotipriya Mallick, accused the cops of harassing the locals.

“In last ten days, the police have attacked villagers several times. The police officers along with the armed hooligans of the CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) attacked the villagers and assaulted them cruelly,” he said.

“Even when they went to the police station to lodge a complaint, they refused to register it. In past ten days, they have picked up 22 Trinamool supporters, branding them as goons,” he added.

“People will not tolerate the torture anymore. We will resist now. In whatever way possible, the common people will resist the movement of the police into the villages and we will not stop them from doing that. The incident of injuring the inspector in charge of Barasat was the starting point of the resistance,” said Mallick.

Superintendent of police Rahul Srivastav said: “We are not aware about their political affiliations. We were informed that miscreants were hiding in the area and they had stockpiled arms and ammunition.”