4 killed as CISF opens fire after mob attack in Bengal

COOCH BEHAR/KOLKATA: Five people were killed, four of them when a CISF unit that had been attacked opened fire on a mob, in Cooch Behar’s Sitalkuchi on Saturday as Bengal’s fourth round of polling turned out to be the bloodiest and most disrupted one of the eight-phase elections so far.
A 14-year-old boy was among several injured in the seven rounds of firing by CISF that left four villagers died.The Election Commission countermanded polling in booth number 126 of the constituency, based on a report from special observer Vivek Dube.
The first victim of Saturday’s violence was 18-year-old Ananda Burman, who was shot by two bike-borne assailants just as he stepped out of a polling booth after casting the first vote of his life.
Cooch Behar SP Debasish Dhar said Burman died before he could be taken to hospital. Trinamool and BJP blamed each other for the death, which occurred around 9am and seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. Two people were arrested in connection with the attack while the EC sought a report on the incident.
Trouble started 45 minutes later at Amtali Madhyamaik Shiksha Kendra, about 15km away, after 14-year-old Md Manik collapsed near a polling booth. Villagers said his mother had asked him to wait outside before stepping in to vote. Three women from the neighbourhood were trying to revive Manik when CISF personnel guarding the booth stepped out to check what the commotion was about.
The CISF team offered to shift the boy to a hospital, reports reaching the EC office in Kolkata suggested. But, according to another account based on what a section of villagers said, Manik was injured in an assault by the CISF personnel.
Around 350 people gathered in no time and attacked the CISF team and others, including unit head Sunil Kumar, a 32-year-old home guard, two poll officers and an Asha worker, sources said.
The mob reportedly tried to snatch firearms from the CISF personnel. A quick-response team headed for the site was apparently waylaid by residents of the area and their vehicle ransacked.
According to officials, the CISF personnel fired two rounds in the air at first, but that failed to disperse the crowd. They then fired seven rounds in “self-defence”, leading to the deaths. “Primary investigation revealed the force opened fire in self-defence after a few from the mob tried to snatch their firearms,” DIG (Jalpaiguri range) E Annapa said.
SP Dhar corroborated what Annapa said. “They (the CISF men) were overpowered and fired in self-defence.”
Reports sent to the EC, too, cited “self-defence” as the reason for the firing. But a report released by the BSF inspector-general (south Bengal) and CAPF nodal officer for Bengal A K Singh contradicted that version. This report, shared with the media, said firing took place twice — first when 50-60 people attacked a CISF patrol “taking a round of the area along with local police representatives to clear people who were resisting voters from reaching polling booths”.
“One child fell in the melee and miscreants started damaging the unit vehicle and attacked personnel. The team reacted in self-defence and fired six rounds in the air to disperse the mob,” the report said.
The BSF report suggested that the police, too, fired at the mob. SP Dhar denied any firing by the cops.
The second incident took place around 10.30am. Around 150 people returned to attack booth number 126, assaulted poll officials and CISF personnel and tried to snatch their firearms, the report said. Security forces initially fired two rounds in the air and, after that, seven more rounds at the advancing mob. The dead were identified as Chhalmu Mia, Jobed Ali, Amzad Hossain and Nameed Mia.
In Kolkata, crude bombs were hurled at a housing complex and chilli powder sprayed on polling agents in a daylong cycle of disruption, especially in the southern localities of Kasba and Jadavpur.
Residents of the Rose Valley Apartments at Kustia in Tiljala said they were left pulverised by two bombs lobbed from the rear of the complex around 1.30pm, minutes before a few residents were to assemble to cast their votes at a nearby primary health centre. “Kids would be playing here on any other day. Today being an election day, we had asked them to stay inside,” said Sharad Agarwal, a resident of the complex.
At a booth near Jadavpur, two elderly women polling agents needed medical attention after their eyes were sprayed with chilli powder by an alleged false voter. Both Dipti Lahiri (71), a CPM polling agent, and Sunanda Das (64), representing an Independent candidate, stood their ground in the face of the attack.
BJP alleged that its agent at Shahid Smriti Colony was assaulted and barred from the booth. Similar charges of assault on two BJP workers were levelled by the party’s Jadavpur candidate Rinku Naskar in the Kendua area.
At Kasba, another south Kolkata locality, BJP alleged that Trinamool workers targeted specific apartments and snatched voter ID cards. Trinamool contested the allegation.
Two-time Dinhata MLA Udayan Guha was allegedly attacked by BJP supporters when he was stepping out of a booth in the Bhataguri area. In Hooghly, actor-MP and BJP candidate Locket Chatterjee’s car was attacked by a group carrying black flags. She alleged that the attack was in retaliation to her bid to stop rigging attempts at a booth.
Actor and BJP’s Behala candidate Payel Sarkar’s car was vandalised allegedly by Trinamool supporters when she was visiting booths in the area. Vaishali Dalmiya, the BJP candidate from Bally, was also attacked and a car in her convoy was vandalised, allegedly by Trinamool workers, when she was visiting booths at Liluah. Trinamool pointed fingers at dissension in BJP for the violence.
(With inputs from Dwaipayan Ghosh, Tamaghna Banerjee & Rohit Khanna)