TMC leader shot at in North 24 Parganas

Kolkata: A Trinamul Congress leader was shot at in Titagarh of North 24 Parganas in front of a Kali Puja pandal in broad daylight.

Satish Mishra, the president of ward no 21, has been admitted to a private hospital with bullet injuries. He works at a wagon factory.

The incident took place on Monday when he was chatting with local Trinamul councillor Manish Shukla and his aides in front of the puja mandap of Students’ Welfare Society at Talpukur in Muchipara. Suddenly, four armed miscreants came up to them and opened fire. Satish received bullet injury on his right chest and slumped on the ground while others fled.

The 22-year-old injured Trinamul leader was rushed to a hospital in Barrackpore from where he was shifted to a private hospital in the city.

Preliminary investigation revealed that two rounds were fired by the gang. The first bullet missed the target. Mr Shukla, a close aide of Trinamul MLA Arjun Singh, was suspected to be the real target of the shooters.

Mr Singh visited the area later. He claimed that the miscreants targeted Mr Shukla while Satish was injured in his bid to save him. The Trinamul Congress MLA also accused the BJP of carrying out the attack.

Later, a BJP party office was vandalised by angry Trinamul workers. The Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed to bring the situation under control.

BJP Barrackpore district committee president Ahin Basu, however, rejected Mr Singh’s claims. “The internal feud of the Trinamul has been evident across the state. They are baying for the blood of their own partymen. The person who is accused of the attack has not been home for the past 20 days. He is at his ancestral home in Uttar Pradesh now,” he said.

Bhola Sardar and Kala Munna, two of the four attackers — were later arrested by the police on attempt to murder charge. They will be produced at the court on Tuesday. The police, however, suspects that none of the arrested duo, although was part of the gang, had opened the fire.