Fascist regime of West Bengal, India

For Kolkata thana rioting, police blame themselves

Madhuparna DasTags : Trinamool workers, CM Mamata Banerjee,Kolkata PolicePosted: Wed Nov 09 2011, 02:18 hrsKolkata:

Two days after a mob of 300 Trinamool workers and supporters stormed a police station in the heart of Kolkata, assaulted policemen and vandalised government and private vehicles, the police have filed a preliminary report of the rioting — and indicted their own men.

The mob, comprising members of two clubs in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s south Kolkata neighbourhood, fought street battles with policemen from Bhowanipore police station who had asked them not to burst crackers outside cancer hospital and a children’s hospital late in the night, and to not block traffic on a major thoroughfare as they took out a boisterous Jagaddhatri Puja immersion procession.

Banerjee landed up personally at the police station on Sunday night, shouted at top Kolkata Police officers, and got two arrested vandals released. The puja in question is organised by an alleged building construction material supplier called Jagannath Sau, who is a close associate of the chief minister’s brother, Baban Banerjee.

Till late on Tuesday, Kolkata Police had not registered a case against the people who attacked the police station. But a preliminary inquiry report prepared by the assistant commissioner of the South division of Kolkata Police is learnt to have indicted officers of the Bhowanipore station for the violence and their failure to control the mob, and criticised them for being rash with those leading the procession.

An officer of the police station has also been booked for misbehaving with the mob, sources said. Top officials declined to speak on the matter.

Significantly, the inquiry report has been prepared without any police officer having visited the area where the Sebak Sangha and the Bhowanipore Players Association clubs are located. Police have not spoken to anyone who was part of the procession and subsequent rioting.

Sebak Sangha is the chief minister’s para club, located at a stone’s throw from her home.

Bursting crackers, playing loud music late in the evening, and blocking main city roads are all illegal under the Police Act and the West Bengal Pollution Control Act.

Police have not booked anyone for violating these laws, or for the rioting and damage to government and private property.

A senior official of the state pollution control board said, “Bursting crackers louder than 90 decibels is prohibited. Bursting crackers or playing loud music in front of a hospital is a violation of the law.

But the PCB cannot start a case against offenders; the police have to do it.”

The rioters damaged windscreens of at least five private vehicles. They vandalised a state transport bus and four motorcycles parked outside the police station, and tried to set them on fire, witnesses said.

The mob assaulted several police personnel, and at least three of them sustained significant injuries. Bhowanipore police station was attacked.