Five persons have been arrested on charges of beating up on-duty government official among other non-bailable sections after the assault of district police official by BJP workers as they were on route to the rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday at West Midnapore district of West Bengal.
The arrested would be produced at Midnapore court today. District police officials said that the arrested were BJP supporters, without divulging details of their identities.
On Monday, as they were on their way to the PM rally, some of them that at Chowringhee area of Kharagpur, about 10 km away from the venue, beat up several policemen because their buses were stopped from reaching the venue. About 20 police officials including a security personnel of additional SP of Kharagpur Y Raghuvanshi had been injured. Biswaranjan Bandopadhyay, OC, Kharagpur Local PS and nine others had been treated at Kharagpur sub division Hospital. Sources at the hospital said that a police officer from Debra PS was injured on the head and a scan was done.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh had condemned the attack on police officials. “There had been some trouble while supporters were coming to the rally venue and it led to a heated argument because they were unable to reach the place. Police officials should have dealt with it properly. I have heard that policemen had been beaten up. This is not desirable. It should not have happened,” he said.
In a separate development, the Centre has sought a report from the state regarding the collapse of one of the tents as Modi was delivering his speech. Two senior officials of the Union Home ministry will be visiting the College Ground of West Midnapore district where the incident happened. Other than district police officials, they will meet officials of the Public Works Department and Fire Services Department. Later they would be sending a report to the Prime Minister’s Office.
