Bengal rulers mafia helpers

Trinamul activist shot in party office

A STAFF REPORTER

Manoj Sahani A Trinamul Congress activist whom some police officers described as a murder suspect was shot dead in front of at least four people in an office of the party in Dum Dum on Sunday morning. Senior Trinamul leaders claimed that Manoj Sahani, 36, a supplier of building materials, was a “victim of political conspiracy”. Manoj, a resident of Ramakrishna Pally in Nimta, was watching TV with four local youths in the party office near the Jessop factory, off Jessore Road, when the assailants struck. “Two youths in their early 20s came to the office in a taxi around 11.10am. They called Manojda by his name and as soon as he got up from his chair, they shot him point-blank,” said a witness who did not want to be named. A couple of minutes later the duo walked out of the office, got into the taxi in which they had come and fled in the direction Nagerbazar. Manoj was taken to a municipal hospital at Dum Dum where he was declared dead on arrival. The Trinamul activist had shifted to his newly-built home in Nimta, on the northern city fringes, a year and a half ago with wife Umarani and their children Simran, 4, and Siddharth, aged six months Umarani said her husband would leave home early in the morning and spend most of the day in Dum Dum. “He used to come back briefly in the afternoon for lunch,” she said. Champak Bhattacharya, the superintendent of North 24-Parganas police, said sleuths were trying to find out whether Manoj had a criminal past. “District cops and the CID are jointly probing the murder.” Investigating officers suspect professional killers had been hired for the job as only one bullet was fired to kill Manoj. A section of police officers said the activist was a suspect in a murder committed in the airport area a month ago. Municipal and urban development minister Firhad Hakim, sports minister Madan Mitra, education minister Bratya Basu and junior Union minister Mukul Roy were among the senior Trinamul leaders who visited the spot and spoke to the Sahani’s family members. Mitra alleged Manoj was a victim of political conspiracy. He blamed the CPM for the “worseing law and order situation in Dum Dum”.