Two persons were killed and at least one seriously injured when occupants of a private nursery school opened fire on them over a property dispute in the Shakespeare Sarani police station area of the city early on Monday.
Eleven persons were arrested, including four women, in connection with the incident. They include the school principal. She, along with two other men, was allegedly responsible for the firing.
The crime, which occurred at about 4.15 a.m., was the outcome of a long-standing dispute over 17 kottah of land within the compound where the school is located. It occurred close to the residence of the Police Commissioner and barely 200 metres from the local police station.
Footage from a closed circuit television camera located at the gates of the compound show the 36-year-old principal, Mamta Agarwal, firing on a group of people who had entered the premises.
Speaking to reporters before her arrest, Ms. Agarwal said she was asleep when a group of people stormed into her room. Most of them were “bouncers” (personnel engaged with a security agency) and tried to molest her. When she cried out for help, her associate, Safique Ahmed alias Pappu, fired at the intruders.
Two licensed rifles were used in the firing as a form of self-defence.
Those who entered the compound, some of them by scaling the walls and the rest after the security guard was forced to open the gates, claimed that they had done so on the instructions of a security agency they worked for to take up their new assignment there. Some in the group were women.
A local leader, who recently joined the Trinamool Congress from the Congress, was allegedly involved in the dispute that has been raging for quite sometime now.
“Apparently, the inmates of the building had fired on those who had entered the premises. We are not certain whether there was any counter-firing or not,” said Pallab Kanti Ghosh, Joint Commissioner (Crime), Kolkata Police.
“The real owner of the disputed land has not been identified as yet… Two guns and seven empty shells of cartridges have been recovered from the crime scene… The arrested will be produced in a city court on Tuesday,” said Mr. Ghosh.
While there are charges of murder and illegal possession of arms against three persons, including the school principal, those of trespassing by night with intention to cause hurt have been slapped on the eight others arrested.
