HAROA: A 36-year-old Trinamool Congress worker who had refused to chant “Jai Shri Ram” suffered multiple fractures in an attack by suspected BJP supporters at Haroa in Bengal’s North 24-Parganas late on Tuesday. A BJP supporter was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the assault on Sheikh Akhtar Ali.
Sources said Akhtar, alias Mantu, was on his way home to Haroa’s Shyamla from the Mahistikari fish farm in the area when he was waylaid by the accused.
“The attackers dragged him to a local club and asked him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. When Akhtar refused, they beat him up with iron rods and bamboo sticks. They then left him unconscious on the road near his house,” said former MLA and Trinamool’s Haroa candidate Hazi Nurul Islam.
Some residents took the critically injured man to Haroa State General Hospital, from where he was shifted to Basirhat District Hospital after his condition deteriorated. As news of the attack spread, hundreds of Trinamool supporters laid siege to Haroa police station till late in the night, demanding the immediate arrest of the culprits.
Akhtar’s father Sheikh Sattar lodged a complaint against nine people. The arrested BJP supporter was identified as Tarak Hazra. BJP claimed the incident was the fallout of Trinamool infighting.