A Trinamool Congress leader, Abdul Kasem, 40, was found killed by unidentified persons, while his body was left abandoned in a field near National Highway-34 in Bastoipi village under the Itahar police station in North Dinajpur district.
Police said they have detained one person in connection with the incident. Villagers found his bleeding body and informed the police this morning. Sources said Kasem’s throat had been slit and that there were cut wounds in his abdomen too. Kasem was a money lender by profession, sources said.
Police, meanwhile, pressed into service a sniffer dog to trace the killers, sources said. “The deceased was the former president of the booth committee of the TMC.
He was an active leader. We are still trying to find out why he was killed. Opposition parties may have a hand in the incident. We have asked the police to trace the killers and give them exemplary punishment,” the President of the North Dinajpur TMC committee, Knaiyalal Agarwal, said. According to the Superintendent of Police of the Raiganj Police District, Sana Akhter, they had so far found no political link to the murder.
“The deceased was a money lender by profession. We have detained a person in connection with the incident, and have started investigations into the incident. We are also trying to trace the killers,” he said.