The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the West Bengal post-poll violence has registered 10 fresh FIRs in the matter, taking the total tally of FIRs registered in connection with the violence, unleashed in the state after Mamata Banerjee-led govt retained power in the state, to 21.
In addition to this, the central investigating agency has arrested 2 people in connection with one of the previous FIRs filed earlier this week.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a total of 21 FIRs so far in connection with the West Bengal post-poll violence matter.
— ANI (@ANI) August 28, 2021
The arrest of two accused Biju and Aasima Ghosh on Saturday, August 28, charged with the murder of BJP worker Dharma Mondal and two others in West Bengal’s Nadia district on May 14, comes as the first arrest made by the CBI in the matter. Bijoy Ghosh and Asima Ghosh were briefly detained before being arrested by the probe agency, sources in the CBI said.
Before arresting the two accused, the agency carried out searches in as many as 15 locations in connection with the case related to the brutal murder of Dharma Ghosh, who had succumbed to his injuries on May 16. The CBI had booked eight persons in the matter, reports added.
Prior to this, the central investigation agency had registered its first set of FIRs in the matter on August 26.
All four special teams of the central investigating agency entrusted with examining the incidents of violent crimes, perpetrated by TMC goons in West Bengal in the backdrop of a sweeping victory for the ruling Trinamool Congress, have relocated from Kolkata to the places where the incidents of violence took place.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has started crying foul over the Calcutta High Court ordered CBI probe. Today, speaking in Kalighat, the TMC supremo asserted that in post-poll violence, 5 BJP workers and 16 TMC workers had died. We have no problem with CBI, but why are they taking BJP leaders with them to villages? NHRC and all other commissions have become political, all their members are from BJP, the WB CM opined while speaking on the occasion of Trinamool Chhatra Parishad foundation day on Saturday (August 27).
High Court hands over the West Bengal post-poll violence case to the CBI
The CBI has taken over the investigations on the orders of a five-judge panel of the Calcutta High Court, which on August 19, tasked the agency with a court-monitored probe into the innumerable murder and rape instances reported during West Bengal’s post-poll rioting which occurred in the aftermath of West Bengal Assembly elections in the month of May 2021.
High Court constitutes SIT to look into other criminal cases related to post-poll violence
The high court also directed the state government to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the cases related to violence.
Post poll violence in West Bengal
Using violence as an instrument to subdue their political opponents has become a distinctive feature of the TMC rule in West Bengal. Ever since the Mamata Banerjee-led retained power in the state, the persecution of dissenters and opposition workers has only intensified. In an overwhelming number of such incidents, the victims have been BJP supporters and workers while the accused were said to be the supporters of the TMC party. More than a dozen BJP workers have lost their lives in the post-poll violence that ensued following the victory of the TMC party in the assembly elections.
There were reports that said women in West Bengal were raped, assaulted and, in some cases, even killed, just because they adhered to a different political ideology. Recently, a victim who was raped by the TMC goons in front of her father shared her harrowing ordeal with OpIndia. She narrated how she was attacked and sexually assaulted by her perpetrators associated with the TMC party. In the aftermath of the assembly election results, TMC goons wreaked havoc, attacking and plundering the houses of their opponents. In one such attack, TMC goons lynched BJP worker Avijit Sarkar to death.
