West Bengal announces judicial probe into Basirhat violence

The West Bengal government on Saturday ordered a judicial inquiry into the communal violence in North 24 Parganas district’s Basirhat subdivision.

Making the announcement, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said a sitting or a former Calcutta High Court Judge would be entrusted with the probe.

Violence erupted between two communities at Baduria on July 3 night over a Facebook post by a youth.

He was arrested, and in the ensuing violence mobs attacked shops and houses, torched vehicles, including those of the police, and put up road blockades. Several police personnel sustained injuries.

“We will conduct a judicial probe into the Baduria-Basirhat incident to take impartial action as per the law. We want to know the forces which indulged in violence. We will also probe the media’s involvement in spreading rumours,” Mamata told reporters at state Secretariat Nabanna here.

She said the state would provide all administrative inputs to the judicial commission.

Mamata lauded the residents of Baduria-Basirhat for “not getting trapped” though there was a “conspiracy to draw them into the conspiracy by offering them arms”.

Criticising rumour-mongering, she said: “I am not against Facebook, but against fakebook.”

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of indulging in violence, she said “the BJP is setting fire to Trinamool Congress offices. We have blacklisted two organisations. The BJP has been destroying the country. They did not control Kashmir and instead are injecting insurgency.”

The chief minister said the state government would take strong action against those responsible for the violence.

“How was the Bangladesh border opened? Who takes care of the security of the border? Some of the infiltrators came from the other side of the border and left after indulging in communal violence,” she alleged.

Continuing her tirade against the Centre, Mamata alleged the BJP was trying to stoke unrest wherever it was (politically) weak.

Mamata blamed a section of the national media for “spreading rumour and telecasting distorted, fabricated videos”.

“We came to know that a couple of national TV channels used clippings of Bangladesh’s Comilla which was shown as Bengal’s [clippings]. They also used Bhojpuri clippings and showed it as if they were from Bengal. They are telecasting distorted, fabricated videos, which have no link to Bengal. This is a crime and law will take its own course.”

She, however, praised the Bengal media and a section of the national media for desisting from spreading rumours.

source: GULF NEWS