Journalism of Courage
The West Bengal Police have arrested a man, who was seen brandishing a weapon during a Ram Navami procession, from Munger in Bihar. According to the police, Sumit Shaw, 19, a resident of Salkia in Howrah, had been absconding since the incident.
Howrah Police Commissioner Praveen Tripathi told The Indian Express, “Sumit Shaw, the son of Raj Kumar Shaw, has been arrested from Munger last night. He was part of the VHP rally in Shibpur”.
The police said he was arrested from Sakhoul, Bangalma, from the house of one of his relatives, identified as Chamak Lal Shaw.
The ruling TMC said with Shaw’s arrest the lies of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been exposed. “Yesterday, the BJP and VHP claimed that the procession video does not belong to them,” said TMC spokesperson Krishanu Mitra.
“The man who was seen with a weapon and about whom the BJP had been in denial mode has now been arrested. It is clear that the BJP is bringing hooligans from Munger to Bengal for creating a disturbance,” added party leader Kunal Ghosh.
On its part, the BJP accused the TMC of “planting the man to malign it”.
“Who can confirm his political affiliation? There is also a possibility that the TMC had planted him to malign the BJP. If the police are so competent that they identified and arrested this man from Munger why did they fail to stop him from participating in the rally itself? This is a planned and scripted violence by the TMC,” said BJP’s Sajal Ghosh.
TMC’s National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee had on March 31 posted a video on Twitter showing a man allegedly from the VHP’s Ramnavami Shobha Yatra in Howrah brandishing a country-made gun. In the tweet, Banerjee had alleged that it was BJP’s “dangabaji formula” to provoke and instigate communities against each other. The video was also shared by other TMC MPs.
On Monday, the BJP’s Bengal unit had denied the video was from their yatra.
Incidents of violence have been reported from Howrah, Hooghly, and Uttar Dinajpur districts in West Bengal in the past few days. Violence during Ram Navami celebrations had rocked parts of the Howrah district last Thursday and Friday.
