The eight-member delegation of Trinamool Congress which visited Assam on a two-day trip was not allowed to leave the airport and some of the members of the delegation alleged that they were physically assaulted.
They are being kept under preventive detention of Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and will be held inside Silchar Airport.
The delegation comprised party MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Ratna De Nag, Nadimul Haque, Arpita Ghosh, Mamata Thakur and MLA Mohua Moitra. They reached at Silchar airport at 2 pm on Thursday and were supposed to visit Nagaon and Guwahati. State minister Firhad Hakim later arrived at the airport and was also detained at the airport.
Roy, who said he was suffering from a heart ailment, said that as soon as they arrived at the airport a group of police officials along with the district magistrate stopped them. They were asked to wait at the VIP lounge but when the TMC leaders tried to leave the airport, they were stopped the police.
“I was hit on my chest by one of the police officers. I have a pacemaker in my chest. They had also manhandled Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Mamata Bala Thakur and Mahua Moitra,” he said and added that they would wait at the airport till they were allowed to get into the city.
Dastidar, the party MP said that they were beaten up and their cell phones were seized. “They have manhandled us and would not listen to me. I have heard that they would arrest us but would not cite any reason,” she said.
Assam Police DGP Kuladhar Saikia on Thursday said three FIRs have been filed against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “FIRs have been filed at three police stations under sections 120B, 153A, 294 and 506 of the IPC,” he said.
Talking about the delegation being stopped at the airport, he said, “There is complete peace in Assam and the NRC process had been going along smoothly. We apprehended that if they went to those places there could be trouble and thus we had to stop them,” he said.
Mamata said that there was super emergency in the country. “I was in Delhi meeting Arvind Kejriwal when the FIRs were filed. We are not worried about those. They will face the music. There is no democracy in the country. Only a situation of super emergency is prevailing. If everything is peaceful then why is the government behaving in this manner?” she said.
BJP state leadership, however, said that Assam Police did the right thing. “She had talked about civil war. Had she been there to spark a civil war?” said state BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
Party national secretary Rahul Sinha said, “Police have done the right thing. They should be kicked out of Assam and sent back to Bengal.”
Congress state president Adhir Chowdhury said that while BJP was resorting to polarisation, Mamata was trying to reap political dividend amidst the confusion.
