Reports about police chief’s ‘ouster for snooping’ cause confusion in Kolkata

The BJP had alleged Tuesday that two persons — it has named them as policemen in an FIR — had approached Rahul Sinha seeking help in smuggling cows across the Indo-Bangladesh border in exchange for money. Sinha had alleged that the incident, coming on the heels of the emergence of sting videos purportedly showing Trinamool leaders accepting bribes from a fictitious company, was an attempt to embroil the BJP in a “counter-conspiracy” with the aid of the police special branch. In the memorandum against Rajeev Kumar, the BJP alleged, “This clearly appears to be a government-sponsored conspiracy towards a failed sting operation to discredit BJP, their main opposition in the coming election. Apparently this heinous and reckless conspiracy was attempted by the ruling party to divert attention from Narada scam.” An FIR has been lodged against two policemen, ASI Subasis Roy Chowdhury and constable Aminul Rahman. He said, “Chowdhury said Rahman was an unemployed youth and wanted some help in smuggling cows across the Bangladesh border. He offered to reward me.”

A senior BJP leader said it wasn’t until officers from the Jorasanko police station turned up that the two men were identified as officers of the SB. “Initially, we weren’t sure of the identity of the two. It was when we called the police station and their officers turned up that we realised that were officers of the police. Immediately, red flags were raised and we realised that something like this couldn’t happen without the knowledge of the Kolkata police commissioner,” he said.

The Congress too has demanded removal of the commissioner.