Trinamul Congress Goons Shoot Dead Teacher

B Prasant

IN A grisly and reprehensible incident at the Baratala village at Khejuri at Midnapore (east), thugs of the Trinamul Congress launched an assault on a local CPI(M) office and proceeded to shoot dead Comrade Asrukana Mondol, an AIDWA worker and a teacher at the Khejuri College.  The goons were on their way back after attending a meeting where the Trinamul Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee had been the principal speaker.

According to eyewitnesses who spoke to INN/PD at Khejuri on Sunday August 10, the attackers were led by the Trinamul Congress activist and a dreaded criminal, Swapan Patra.  Led by Patra, ten miscreants drove up to the Party office in a jeep and a couple of motorcycles.  Armed with guns and sharp weapons, they swooped down on the single-storey building and started to shoot their way in when Comrade Asrukana Mondol stood in their way and refused to budge even at gunpoint.

After trying and failing to shove her aside, the goons promptly shot her thrice in the stomach, entered the office, shot and injured the local CPI (M) leader, Rabi-ul Hussein, and tried to make good their escape.  Comrade Asrukana subsequently succumbed to the fatal wounds that had been inflicted on her.  But for her supreme sacrifice, very many Party workers would have lost their lives, the local people told INN/PD.

Despite being confronted with bombs and bullets, several hundred villagers gathered around the Party office, and gave chase as the attackers sought to flee the scene.  After a two-kilometre pursuit, the villagers who had grown in number were finally able to force the jeep and the motorbike off the road and wrestle the thugs to the ground.  During the confrontation, the goons let off several more shots and injured four more Party workers.  They are: Sasanka Dhara, Sachin Das, Haripada Das, and Kalipada Das.

Reacting to the incident, state secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas said that any meeting organised by the Trinamul Congress represented, in the ultimate analysis, sheer provocation and wanton violence. 

Such incidents as the one at Khejuri had been repeated over the years in the recent past, said Biswas who also pointed out that in Keshpur alone, more than two hundred young men had to die as a result of assaults organised by Trinamul Congress goons over the past couple of years. 

Anil Biswas has called upon the people to be sharply aware of the dangerous and criminal bent of the Trinamul Congress activists in the state and to isolate them from the masses.