West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday alleged that the members of a Trinamool Congress delegation visiting Assam were manhandled at the Silchar airport. She said the Centre had imposed a “super emergency” in country.
Hours later, as reports of an FIR being lodged against the delegation came in, Ms. Banerjee said lodging an FIR is not an one-sided process.
“They have lodged many FIRs against us. They have also arrested my Minister ... I am anyway here in Bengal, what they would do to me by registering cases in Assam. But they should remember that the process cannot be one sided. As you sow, so shall you reap,” she told presspersons.
Trinamool MP Derek O’ Brien said: “The delegation did not go there to break the law. They are lawmakers, not lawbreakers. When they were told that Section 144 of the Cr. PC was invoked, they agreed to split into pairs to meet the aggrieved. But that too was not allowed. Super emergency is on.”
The party alleged that the police misbehaved with the delegation. “The senior-most member of our delegation, Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, has a pacemaker. The police beat him up and they roughed up our women MPs too,” Mr. O’Brien said.
The Trinamool raised the issue in the Lok Sabha too. “This is a breach of privilege, and we will move a motion against the Assam government, which is interfering with the free movement of people,” party member Saugata Roy said.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, MP who was part of the delegation, said: “As soon as we landed, we were surrounded by hundreds of policemen and were illegally confined to the airport.”
(With inputs from the Kolkata bureau)
