Calcutta HC seeks report from Bengal administration on communal tension in Mothabari

Kolkata: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Friday, sought the reports on the situation in Mothabari from the district administration in West Bengal's Malda over alleged attacks on the Hindus. The petition refers to alleged "attacks on people of a particular religious community by people from another community". The West Bengal unit of the BJP filed a petition at Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das seeking the court’s intervention in the matter. The matter came up for hearing on Friday, and at the end of the hearing, the division bench directed the district magistrate and district police superintendent of Malda to submit a report to the court by April 3.

In the petition filed by state BJP leader and senior counsel, Calcutta High Court Kaustav Bagchi also made an appeal for the court’s direction for the deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel at Mothabari till the time the situation is totally under control. It is learned that although the situation at Mothabari is currently under control, the division bench wanted to know what exactly happened there. Earlier in the day, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, informed that he had written a letter to Governor C.V. Ananda Bose requesting him to direct the state government to deploy CAPF at Mothabari following the large-scale attacks on the Hindus there. The LoP has accused the West Bengal government and the ruling Trinamool Congress of preparing the blueprint for “Greater Bangladesh” through appeasement politics. Adhikari has also claimed to the media persons that the miscreants at Mothabari went out of control, plundered and vandalized the properties of Hindus in an unabated manner. "Their targets were Hindus. That is why I feel that CAPF deployment is the only solution to control the situation, as police have failed to contain the vandalism and hooliganism. The state police personnel were acting like ‘helpless puppets: just pleading with the miscreants with folded hands. The miscreants took control of the main roads and freely vandalized several vehicles,” the LoP added.