Tuesday, July 16, 2013

What happens when cops...


Golokpati Barui, a polling agent of the CPI candidate for Salepur gram panchayat in Arambagh, had been kidnapped from the booth around 8am by suspected Trinamul activists.......

The Telegraph today, 16th July, 2013 reported .......

.....Golokpati Barui, a polling agent of the CPI candidate for Salepur gram panchayat in Arambagh, had been kidnapped from the booth around 8am by suspected Trinamul activists.......

Three persons were killed in clashes in the second phase of the panchayat polls in Bengal on Monday. The following ../images capture the rage and the fear that marked the polling day in some blocks. Pictures by Maidul Islam Khan

the candidate, under the bridge A bonti ( slicer) in hand, Sudipta Barui and a group of women armed with bamboo sticks headed towards a polling booth in Hooghly.

Word had spread that Sudipta's husband Golokpati Barui, a polling agent of the CPI candidate for Salepur gram panchayat in Arambagh, had been kidnapped from the booth around 8am by suspected Trinamul activists.

Sudipta initially ran to the policemen near the booth and requested them to rescue her husband. But, she alleged, the police did not offer her any help.

The police usually get involved only if a written complaint is made at the local station, which Sudipta could not do in her state of panic.

Sudipta returned home and informed her neighbours that her husband was missing. Soon, nearly 20 women from Salepur ran to the polling centre, a school 1km from the village. The group burst into the school and Sudipta confronted the police guards.

By then, subdivisional police officer Shibaprasad Patra and another senior official had arrived with central forces and policewomen. At one point, a central police jawan's baton was seen locked with the bonti . The policewomen then wielded the baton and the women fled. The policewomen chased them for quite some distance and picked up four.

Sudipta was not among those held.

Soon after, Sudipta's husband Golokpati was freed — probably because of the storm kicked up by the women outside the booth, the news of which had spread across the block.

Golokpati said on Monday evening: " I was dragged from the booth by Trinamul supporters to the banks of the Damodar river ( around 3km from the village).

They beat me up with sticks. Then they released me." The Trinamul MLA from Arambagh, Krishna Chandra Santra, said his party had had nothing to do with the alleged abduction.

Reporting by Uttam Dutta.

Panchayat Election West Bengal