The situation in Baduria and adjoining areas, where communal clashes had erupted over a Facebook post, remained under control, while tension mounted at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital and Medical College on Thursday after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership claimed that one of its supporters had died in the hospital from the injuries sustained in the communal clashes.
Dilip Ghosh, president of the West Bengal unit of the BJP, said that 65-year- old Kartick Ghosh, a resident of Kakra in Basirhat area of North 24 Parganas, was stabbed to death.
‘Stopped and abused’
Mr. Ghosh alleged that when he and BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya set out to visit the family members of the deceased, they were stopped by hundreds of people who surrounded their vehicles and abused them. “Goons have taken control of West Bengal and now even of the hospital. They are beating our supporters and abusing us,” Mr. Ghosh said.
The BJP leaders said the crowd that stopped them comprised mostly Trinamool Congress supporters.
According to the BJP leaders, the victim was injured in communal strife on Wednesday and brought to the hospital late in the evening.
Trinamool Congress secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said that if the BJP’s claim that one of their supporters had died in the clashes is true, then they must answer what their supporter was doing there in the first place.
“Their claim indicates that it’s the BJP that has been fuelling communal strife in the area,” he said.
