BEHRAMPORE: A Trinamool gram panchayat member was killed at Murshidabad’s Burwan while he was going for the morning market on Friday, sparking tension in the area.
Miscreants waiting in the desolate paddy fields nearby hurled bombs and opened fire at Sheikh Mustafa (28), riding pillion on a bike of one of his loyalists.
Burwan Police interrogated the traumatized loyalist who was taking the Kurunnurun gram panchayat member to the local Sundarpur bazaar.
The Sundarpur incident is the second murder in Kandi subdivision in the last 24 hours. It came within a day of the killing of a poultry farm owner who happened to be the son of Rajibur Sheikh (31), the pradhan of the Trinamool-run Kumarshanda panchayat on Thursday morning.
Though TMC leaders blamed a Congress-BJP conspiracy, locals were not sure of any opposition hand in the twin murders.
Mustafa had survived a bomb attack in 2018. Kurunnurun panchayat pradhan Tapan Das demanded “punishment of the culprits”. Trinamool Burwan MLA Jiban Krishna Saha said: “I am in Kolkata and have asked police to identify the culprits. We suspect a Congress-BJP hand in the murder.”
BJP Murshidabad president Gouri Shankar Ghosh refuted the charge. “The complaint is baseless. They (Trinamool) are saying all this to cover up conflict within the party,” he said.
