One more person was arrested on Tuesday for raising inflammatory slogans of ‘goli maro salon ko’ (shoot the traitor), taking the total number of arrests to four. While three people were arrested from the city’s central New Market police station area on Monday morning, another person was rounded up from Ghola in 24 Parganas (North) district in the night.
BJP supporters had allegedly raised the slogans en route to attending Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s rally in Kolkata on Sunday.
‘Rally staged by TMC’
BJP’s State leadership distanced itself from the Sunday incident. Party vice-president Subhas Sarkar said that the ‘goli maro’ rally was “staged by TMC to malign the BJP”.
The Kolkata police have registered a case under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 34 (common intent), 505 (public mischief) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had described the slogan as “inflammatory, illegal and demonic” and said strong action will be taken.
War of words
Meanwhile, a war of words over the recent political developments in the State continued with BJP MP and Union Minister of State Babul Supriyo criticising Ms. Banerjee for her “genocide” remarks.
On Monday, Ms. Banerjee had called the violence in Delhi a “planned genocide”.
Mr. Supriyo urged the Chief Minister not to make ‘provocative’ statements. “The Chief Minister doesn’t even know the meaning of genocide. So she should think twice before shooting off her mouth. At a time when normalcy is returning to Delhi, she should stop making these kind of provocative comments,” he said.