NIA team attacked in Bengal’s East Midnapore, bricks pelted at vehicle; 1 officer injured

A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was attacked at Bhupatinagar in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district on Saturday morning when the officials reached there to investigate a 2022 blast case at a Trinamool Congress leader’s house.

Initial inputs indicated that bricks were pelted at a car of the NIA team damaging the windscreen. The incident took place around 5.30am when locals gheraoed the vehicle and pelted stones at it. The NIA has said one of its officers was also injured, a senior police official said.

A team of NIA officials earlier this morning arrested two persons in connection with the case and were on their way back to Kolkata, when the vehicle came under attack, news agency PTI reported.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also lodged a police complaint in this regard, it added. A huge contingent of central police force has reached Bhupatinagar, where the NIA team is present along with the two arrested persons, police said.

On December 3, 2022, an explosion ripped apart a house with a thatched roof in Bhupatinagar, killing three persons.

Last month, the NIA summoned eight Trinamool Congress leaders for questioning in connection with the blast.

The TMC accused the BJP of engineering the NIA’s move. The central probe agency had asked the eight to appear before its officers, after they skipped the earlier summons that directed them to visit the NIA office in New Town near here on March 28.

TMC leader Kunal Ghosh alleged that the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party was behind the move.

The BJP has provided a list of TMC leaders of Purba Medinipur district to the NIA, which is planning to arrest them, Ghosh claimed.

The attack on the NIA team comes two months after a team of Enforcement Directorate officials was attacked when they went to raid the house of Shahjahan Sheikh, a suspended local TMC leader with close links with arrested state food minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, in connection with the multi-crore ration distribution scam in West Bengal. Central force personnel accompanying the ED team were also attacked. Three ED officers had to be hospitalised.

The mob allegedly tried to prevent the ED officers from taking Adhya with them, hurling stones at their vehicles. The CRPF personnel accompanying the ED team had to baton charge the mob to control the situation.