At home and booth, oppn candidates face bombs, bullets

KOLKATA: Three shootings, as many bombings, threats to voters and allegations of rigging marked Saturday’s Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls. Trinamool Congress ducked behind the ‘high polling percentage’ logic to argue that people had stepped out of home in large numbers to vote and the city police commissioner said voting was largely “peaceful”.But the incidents of violence spoke a different story.
A narrow lane in Beniapukur leads to the small, non-descript house of Congress ward 60 candidate Mohd Nadim. At 10.30 am, a quartet — all reportedly flaunting Trinamool flags — came on a bike and fired three rounds in the air. Bullets grazed the windshield of a parked Hyundai Accent and the wall of a local club. Nadim stepped out of his house, only to be attacked with bombs. The 20-year-college student was rushed to hospital with a broken arm.
Barely 200 metres away is Albany Hall Public School. “I was playing cricket on the road when four youths came on a motorbike. Two of them had guns in their hand and were firing indiscriminately. I got scared and ran home. I didn’t leave my house after that,” said Shahin Akrar, a student of Class V at the school.
“Trinamool is running a reign of terror here and will crush anyone who goes against them. Nadim is young and stood for the right cause. So he was targeted. And I know all the people who attacked him,” claimed Sahana, a local resident.
A huge police team, including Rapid Action Force and armed forces, went to Nadim’s house and questioned his mother and brother. Police reportedly recovered bombs form Nadims’s house, which they didn’t display to media despite several requests.
In the afternoon, CPM leader Fuad Halim was shot at on Kyd Street when he was sitting in a party camp near the Geological Society of India (GSI) polling booth. Fuad claimed that a 40-45 strong Trinamool gang, many of them motorcycle-borne, was disrupting the polling process in ward 63 — at La Martiniere for Girls, Jewish school and Armenian college booths.
“They were driving away our poll agents, terrorizing them and having a free run. The only booth where our polling agents remained unfazed was GSI. Therefore, we were the targets,” Fuad said.
Himself a voter in the ward, Fuad claimed Trinamool goons then turned towards Chowringhee Lane. “They fired three rounds at me,” he alleged.
Fuad claimed to have lodged an FIR. “I could not identify the goons, but can recognize their faces if shown again,” he said.
The place where Fuad was shot at had three party camps — Congress, BJP and CPM — side by side. The Trinamool camp was a few hundred metres away. BJP ward 63 president Anirudh Singh said, “It happened all too suddenly. The bike-borne youths first damaged the Congress camp, then ours and then fired. Their intention was clear — to strike terror.”
Singh, who saw it all happening, said police weren’t even there when the incident took place. Bijay Kumar Vajpai, a BJP worker who was injured in the melee, alleged, “There anger was because they could do little in the GSI booth.”
DCP (south) Murli Dhar said, “The complaint is being investigated. It has been reported that three gunshots were heard. No splinter, however, was found. We are investigating the matter.”
Trinamool goons allegedly hurled bombs at ward 45 Congress candidate Santosh Pathak as well. The incident happened at Council House Street beside St John’s church. “We were sitting on a bench when three youths with Trinamool flags on their bike came and hurled bombs at us. One of our supporters was injured,” Pathak said.
Another firing was reported from south Kolkata’s Vidyasagar though DCP (south suburban) Santosh Pathak claimed he had no knowledge of it. Bombings were reported from Cossipore, Beliaghata and Belgachia as well.
Kolkata Police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha said, “Barring some incidents, voting was peaceful. Police acted on every complaint made.”