West Bengal: BJP cries murder after MLA found hanging; suicide, say cops

NORTH DINAJPUR: The body of Hemtabad’s CPM-turned-BJP MLA, Debendra Nath Roy (59), was found hanging in front of a closed shop 1.5km from his home on Monday morning, sparking a war of words between the BJP and the Trinamool on how and why he died.
The Bengal government ordered a state Criminal Investigation Department inquiry into the unnatural death but the BJP called a 12-hour bandh in eight north Bengal districts on Tuesday, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the “murder”.
Senior state BJP leaders, however, said they were not certain whether the “killing was political” and that was why an impartial probe was needed to establish the truth. The MLA’s family, including wife Chandrima Roy, too, said he was murdered after being “picked up from home”. “My uncle left home around 1am on Monday with a person who came on a motorcycle and did not return after that,” nephew Kshitish Chandra Roy said.
Trinamool denied any involvement in the incident, pointing to a suicide note he left behind. “It is unfortunate that he died an unnatural death. A probe is on and I hope it will establish the truth. There is no point speculating,” Trinamool North Dinajpur president Kanaia Lal Agarwal said, wondering why Roy’s family did not call up cops if he was really “picked up” from home at night.
The CPM wanted an investigation by a “neutral agency”; Roy was elected MLA of Hemtabad (more than 400 km north of Kolkata) in 2016 on a CPM ticket but later joined the BJP.
Roy went to a neighbour’s home for dinner on Sunday night and returned to his Baliadighi home around 10pm before going to sleep and then leaving around 1am with “the person who came on a motorcycle”. Locals woke up on Monday morning to find Roy hanging with one hand tied to the same rope from which his lifeless body was hanging.
A CID special superintendent reached Raiganj and spoke to the autopsy surgeon a few hours after a state police team with sniffer dogs checked the spot. Forensic experts would visit the spot, senior police officials said, requesting everyone to wait till the probe was over and “not jump to conclusions” based on speculations.
North Dinajpur superintendent of police Sujit Kumar said, “prima facie”, it was a case of suicide. “Prima facie evidence indicates it is a suicide. We have found a suicide note from his pocket. The note points to some people responsible for his suicide. But we are keeping all angles open,” Kumar said.
Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, however, trashed the “suicide” angle and said the police version was “indicative of a cover-up”. He wanted an “autopsy video-graphed by an expert team” in accordance with Supreme Court directives.
Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh saw a similarity in the pattern of unnatural deaths of BJP workers. “It was a planned murder; he was killed and hung. Two BJP activists were killed in Purulia in a similar fashion and their bodies were hung from poles close to their homes. Those trying to give it a suicide twist are trying to cover up. We want a CBI inquiry,” he said, hinting at a Yuva Trinamool leader’s involvement.
“Why should a person take the trouble of travelling 1.5 kilometres at night to hang himself when he could have done that at home?” BJP district president Biswajit Lahiri asked. It was raining heavily for the past few days and roads were muddy but Roy’s clothes had no mud on them, he said, claiming that it clearly showed Roy was “picked up” from home in a vehicle.