Slain BJP worker’s body handed over to family in Kolkata

BOLPUR/KOLKATA: The prolonged tussle between police and the family of slain Birbhum BJP worker Swarup Garai over the handover of his body ended late on Tuesday night, two days after he died at a Kolkata hospital.
The action, however, had moved from Kolkata to Bolpur, where the body was shifted to the subdivisional Sian hospital, under the jurisdiction of Nanoor Police. While Swarup’s family agreed to Bolpur SDPO’s condition that they should announce their route back home with the body, they were then asked to take Nanoor police’s permission.
When police finally arranged for the body’s release, after initial reservations due to the late hour, the family decided to receive it on Tuesday night itself.
A family member had earlier said it was too late to “get a purohit to administer the last rites and we have decided to wait for Wednesday morning”. The family, however, will “take the body to Katwa crematorium along the route police suggested”.
According to sources, Birbhum Police had initially planned to escort Swarup’s body to his Ramkrishnapur home along with his family. Police had inputs that BJP supporters might hold a meeting with the body at Basapara, on the way to Ramkrishnapur.
But when Swarup’s widow Chaina and brother Arup came to the Kolkata hospital’s morgue at 7am on Tuesday, they found the body had already been shifted to Sian hospital.
Chaina lodged a complaint with Entally police station seeking an inquiry into the “unauthorised” shifting. “The body was handed over to your hospital for post-mortem on Monday. When they wanted to hand it over in the evening, I said it would be difficult to take my husband’s body back to Nanoor in the night.
“They then asked me to come at 7am the next day. When I came today, I was told it had been sent to Nanoor. We had no inkling of it,” she said. Police shifted the body out of Kolkata because they feared BJP leaders might take out a rally with the body in the city.
Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said: “Police are not able to stop anti-socials from killing our party workers. They can only stop handing over the dead to the bereaved family.”
Senior Trinamool leader Firhad Hakim discounted the day-long tension over the body as “BJP drama”.
Agitated BJP supporters mobbed the Bolpur subdivisional hospital on Tuesday morning and asked the ward master to hand over Swarup’s body. “The SDPO requisitioned the body and asked the hospital to keep it. The hospital can’t release the body on its own,” an employee said.
By evening, impatient BJP supporters, armed with lathis, blocked the Bolpur-Nanoor Road and burnt tyres on the road. They didn’t pay heed to the Nanoor circle inspector of police, who urged them to lift the blockade.