BJP’s national general secretary and party’s central observer in West Bengal, Kaliash Vijayvargiya, on Tuesday posted a video of West Bengal Police allegedly firing pellets at the saffron camp in Siliguri on Monday.
The development comes after the Police on Tuesday claimed that the BJP worker Ulen Roy, who died during the party’s Uttarkanya march in Siliguri, succumbed to injuries caused by pellets fired from shotgun which did not belong to the force.
“As per the PM report “death was due to the effects of shotgun injuries.” Police do not use shotguns. It’s obvious that during yesterday’s protest in Siliguri, armed persons were brought and they fired from firearms,” the West Bengal police said.
Dismissing the police’s claim, Vijayvargiya posted a video on his official Twitter handle where a police officer was seen preparing to fire pellets.
However, it was not clear from the video if the police was attempting to fire at BJP’s Uttarkanya rally in Siliguri on Monday.
Before the video, Vijayvargiya was seen saying, “Police on (Monday) evening tweeted that they did not fire pellet guns. Not one but I have 10 videos (to prove them wrong). Here’s a sample.”
“There’s no justice in Mamata Banerjee’s state. But I’ll go to the Supreme Court Iif a single BJP workers in convicted maliciously. Here’s a samle video to prove the lies of West Bengal Police. The video is a prove of what they say and what they do.”
Alleging that the BJP worker was killed by someone from inside the protest march, the police said, “The deceased received pallet injuries from a shotgun fired from close range by a person standing near the deceased in the protest program. This is unprecedented. Bringing armed persons in protest programs and inciting them to fire is unheard off.”
“There was a malafide intention to create violence by the use of firearms. CID West Bengal has been asked to investigate. Truth will come out and strong action will be taken against all those who planned and executed the heinous crime,” they added.
Meanwhile, several BJP workers, including six leaders of the party’s women’s wing, were injured, along with several police personnel. BJP leaders said at least 50 party workers, including women, were injured in the clash and that many of them had been hospitalized.
Hundreds of BJP workers and supporters marched towards Uttarkanya, the state government’s branch secretariat, protesting the state government’s “misrule,” when police stopped them.
Either side of Uttarkanya on Asian Highway-2 at Tinbatti and Fulbari turned battlefield when workers of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and BJP workers and leaders broke the first and second police barricades. Protesters also set fire on barricades.
Police used water cannons and fired several rounds of tear gas shells and threw stones to retaliate the protesters, even as the latter hurled stones at the police.