Fact-finding team calls for NIA probe in Bengal Ram Navami clashes

KOLKATA: The members of a fact-finding team of Delhi-based NGO "Fact Finding Committee on Human Rights Violation" on Sunday evening said that the clashes over Ram Navami processions in West Bengal's Howrah and Hooghly districts call for an investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

After being restricted by police on Sunday afternoon from going to Shibpur and Kazipara in Howrah, where clashes broke out over Ram Navami processions on March 30 and continued till the next day, the members of the fact-finding team came back to Kolkata and talked to the media persons.

"Despite being restricted in reaching the troubled spots in Howrah district on Sunday and to Rishra in Hooghly district on Saturday, we were able to somehow interact with some of the local people. What we heard from them is quite shameful. There were not adequate police forces when the trouble broke out in these pockets. The administration is playing the 'me & you' game. This is a perfect case for a NIA-level probes. At the same time, central armed forces personnel should also be deployed there," a team member said.

Meanwhile, political slugfest has started over the police denial to the members of the fact-finding team to reach the troubled spots at Hooghly on Saturday and after that at Howrah on Sunday.

According to the Trinamool Congress' state General Secretary and party spokesman Kunal Ghosh, the police had done the right thing by denying them permission. "Since Ram Navami, BJP has been trying to create problems in those areas by using the outsiders," he said.

BJP's state spokesman Samik Bhattacharya alleged that since the administration has a lot of things to hide, they prevented the members of the fact-finding team from reaching those pockets in Howrah and Hooghly districts.