BEHRAMPORE: Bengal minister Jakir Hossain was critically injured in a bomb attack by unidentified assailants late on Wednesday while waiting to a board a train to Kolkata from Murshidabad’s Nimita station.
Hossain, minister of state for labour in the Mamata Banerjee government and a businessman, was targeted by two-three people who were standing on the platform where the Teesta Torsa Express was to arrive, police said. The assailants fled immediately after the attack.
The minister, who suffered serious hand and leg injuries, was taken to a hospital in Jangipur and given 14 stitches to stop the bleeding before being referred to Kolkata. “He had undergone a cardiac procedure some months ago,” a source said.
Hossain was to travel to Kolkata for a party meeting on Thursday. “We suspect an opposition hand in this,” Trinamool Congress’ district president Abu Taher Khan said. In another incident in the same district around the same time, a TMC block leader was shot at and is also reported to be in a critical condition.