Violence outside counting centre in Bengal kills three, toll tally 33

Two activists of the Indian Secular Front (ISF) were among three persons killed in clash outside a counting centre in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, police said on Wednesday.

Several policemen were also injured in the violence which took place when counting of votes polled in the panchayat elections was going on. The deceased ISF supporters were identified as Rezaul Gazi and Hasan Mollah. The third person who died was Raju Mollah, a police officer said.

The incident occurred on Tuesday night when members of the ISF allegedly hurled bombs outside the counting centre at Bhangore, an ISF hub and around 30 km from Kolkata.

Police fired a few rounds of rubber bullets and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the mob, the officer said. “A senior IPS officer, his bodyguard and several other policemen as well as a few alleged members of the ISF were injured in the clash,” the officer told PTI.

Suspects detained

A few people have been detained for their alleged involvement in the incident. The injured policemen and several ISF supporters were being treated at a hospital. The police have deployed a large number of police personnel at Bhangore.

Crude bombs were found in several localities of Bhangore on Wednesday morning. As a result of the tension, shops and marketplaces remained shut.

Governor CV Ananda Bose has visited violence-hit Bhangore twice and spoken to the family members of a person who was killed in an election-related clash and also to the injured.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is set for a landslide victory in the violence-hit rural polls in West Bengal. Violence on polling day on July 8 left at least 15 people dead. Most of them were from the Trinamool Congress.

Since the elections were announced last month, the number of people who died in poll-related incidents was 33.

BJP walks in

Meanwhile, a BJP fact-finding team which reached West Bengal on Wednesday said it will visit areas hit by the violence and speak to the victims.

The four-member team led by former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it plans to visit north and south Bengal districts. The team also includes Satyapal Singh, Rajdeep Roy and Rekha Verma.

The TMC said the BJP was trying to divert attention from its humiliating defeat. The BJP should first send a fact-finding team to Manipur, which is burning for the last two months, spokesman Kunal Ghosh said.

(With agency inputs)