KOLKATA, May 7: West Bengal sank into a miasma of fear and despair in the face of political violence yet again on Thursday, following uncharacteristically peaceful elections in the state, as early leads in Chandranath Rath’s murder investigation showed the personal assistant to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari was killed in a planned hit on Wednesday night.
Investigators suspect the involvement of professional shooters, with police recovering vehicles carrying fake number plates, even as the murder deepened the state’s post-poll fault lines and led to a fresh war of words between the winner BJP and the loser TMC.
Rath’s grieving mother alleged that the killing was linked to Mamata Banerjee’s defeat against Adhikari in Bhabanipur.
“I would not have suffered so much had he died in an accident. He was targeted because he worked for Adhikari,” she told reporters.
Speaking before Rath’s body was taken to his hometown Chandipur in Purba Medinipur district, Adhikari said the Indian Air Force veteran was killed because of association with him and his victory in Bhabanipur, where he defeated TMC chief Mamata Banerjee.
“The IAF ex-serviceman might not have been killed had he not been my PA and had I not won from Bhabanipur. His only fault was that he was Suvendu Adhikari’s personal assistant. Five bullets were fired at him to ensure his death,” Adhikari told the media at Barasat State General Hospital, where the post-mortem examination of Rath’s body was conducted.
As political tempers soared outside, Rath’s family struggled to come to grips with the tragedy. Party leaders said the family would take a final call on the last rites after consulting relatives.
Police said multiple teams were examining CCTV footage collected from Kolkata Police and Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate areas to trace the men who intercepted Rath’s SUV near Madhyamgram on Wednesday night and opened fire from close range before escaping on motorcycles.
The murder, coming immediately after the BJP’s landmark assembly poll victory ended the TMC’s 15-year rule in Bengal, has transformed the state’s fragile post-election atmosphere into a political confrontation marked by fear, revenge narratives and accusations of retaliatory violence.
The BJP launched a sharp attack on the TMC, alleging the murder reflected a “complete collapse” of law and order in Bengal. State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya claimed party workers were being targeted after the electoral victory and urged cadres to maintain restraint.
“While we are the ones who won the election, we are also the ones who are dying,” he said.
Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan termed the incident a reflection of Bengal’s “blood-soaked political culture”, while Chirag Paswan said people had voted against precisely “this politics of violence”.
The TMC rejected the allegations, insisting the party had no role in the murder and accusing the BJP of politicising the incident even before the investigation was complete.
Congress and CPI(M) leaders also condemned the killing and demanded an impartial probe.
Investigators said Rath, 42, was returning to his Madhyamgram residence from Kolkata around 10.30 pm on Wednesday when his vehicle was intercepted near Doharia between Doltala and Madhyamgram Chowmatha.
According to preliminary findings, a small car first slowed Rath’s SUV before one of the motorcycle-borne assailants approached the vehicle and fired multiple rounds from close range.
Police later seized the abandoned small car and found its number plate to be fake.
“The chassis number and engine number have been erased. It indicates the murder was planned earlier,” a senior officer said.
Investigators also recovered one of the motorcycles allegedly used in the attack from near a tea stall around 4 km from the crime scene. Police found that the motorcycle, too, carried a fake registration number and its chassis number had been scrubbed.
The second motorcycle used in the crime is yet to be traced.
Police recovered empty cartridges, live ammunition and bullet shells from the spot, while forensic experts indicated that sophisticated Glock pistols appeared to have been used in the attack.
“A weapon of this nature is generally not used by ordinary criminals. We are examining whether professional shooters were involved,” a senior officer said.
Rath’s driver Buddhadeb Bera also sustained bullet injuries and remained critical after undergoing surgeries at a Kolkata hospital. Police stepped up deployment across Madhyamgram, Doharia and adjoining pockets after BJP supporters staged protests and road blockades demanding immediate arrests.
DGP Siddh Nath Gupta and CRPF Director General Gyanendra Pratap Singh visited the crime scene as investigators pursued leads. Police said CCTV footage showed the suspicious car travelling towards Madhyamgram shortly before the attack.
Officers also questioned a tea estate employee from Siliguri after discovering that the registration number used on the abandoned car belonged to his vehicle.
He claimed he had uploaded photographs of the car on an online platform to sell it, investigators said.
The killing followed the fiercely fought assembly elections that handed the BJP a historic victory in Bengal and set the stage for the swearing-in of its first government in the state. For the BJP, preparing to form its first government in the state, the incident reinforced its long-standing allegation that Bengal’s political culture under the TMC thrived on intimidation and targeted attacks.
For the TMC, already grappling with the fallout of a crushing electoral defeat, the optics of the murder have become deeply damaging despite its attempts to distance itself from the crime and demand a court-monitored CBI probe.
The murder sharpened the intensely personal rivalry between Adhikari and the TMC leadership, while also aggravating fears that Bengal’s turbulent cycle of post-poll violence could enter an even more dangerous phase. (PTI)
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