The officer-in-charge of a police station in West Bengal’s Birbhum district was taken off responsibility on Wednesday, lower than 24 hours after two Trinamool Congress (TMC) employees have been injured in a conflict between rival teams over the management of unlawful sand enterprise within the area, officers concerned within the probe stated.
For representational functions solely. (AP File Photograph)
9 individuals, together with Swapan Sen, a member of the TMC’s Khayrasole neighborhood block unit, have been arrested until Wednesday midday.
“Purnendu Bikash Das, in-charge of the Kankartala police station, has been taken off duty and confined to the barracks until further orders. All nine accused will be produced before the Dubrajpur court. An investigation is on,” a district police official stated, requesting anonymity.
Dubrajpur circle inspector Subhashis Haldar was requested to take cost of the Kankartala police station within the interim interval.
TMC employee Sattar Ali and his brother Babu Sheikh suffered splinter accidents on Tuesday when two rival teams, combating over fee from the sale of sand from the native Ajoy river, hurled bombs at one another at Jamalpur village in Khayrasole, the probe discovered.
“The clash was a fallout of an old rivalry between two TMC factions that want to control the illegal sand business,” Anup Saha, the Bharatiya Janata Celebration legislator from Dubrajpur, stated.
Denying the allegation, Moloy Mukherjee, vice-president of the TMC’s district unit, stated, “The clash had nothing to do with TMC. There is no infighting. Police are taking strong action against those involved. Nobody will be spared.”
The Birbhum incident came about barely 4 months after chief minister Mamata Banerjee ordered district officers to be vigilant.
Whereas holding an administrative assembly in Birbhum in September 2024, Banerjee stated the state authorities was shedding income due to unauthorised excavation of sand from riverbeds by organised gangs.