Three-year-old girl, many others injured in Bengal post-poll clashes

Kolkata: A three-year-old girl was among a number of people injured in separate incidents of post-poll violence in various parts of West Bengal since Sunday afternoon, with the CPI-M blaming the ruling Trinamool Congress.

The Trinamool denied the allegations and counter-charged that the Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres were attacking its workers.

In Satgachia of South 24 Parganas district, a CPI-M worker was assaulted by miscreants allegedly close to the Trinamool.

The girl sustained injuries in the ear during the violence.

Seven polling agents of CPI-M’s Jadavpur assembly constituency candidate Sujon Chakraborty were attacked, allegedly by Trinamool workers in the Bagha Jatin area on the city’s southern outskirts on late Sunday night.

The CPI-M alleged that the agents were beaten up, and their houses ransacked.

The party’s local committee secretary Buddhadeb Ghosh was also assaulted, his house attacked, and his old mother beaten up.

Chakraborty visited the houses of the victims on Monday morning.

“The Trinamol failed to loot votes. So they are frustrated. Without any provocation, they carried out the planned attack by bringing people from outside the area,” he said.

Local Trinamool councillor Bappaditya Dasgupta admitted that his partymen were involved in the attack, but claimed it was only a retaliation for the attack on Trinamool workers by CPI-M “goons” on Sunday afternoon. “We had informed police then, but they did not act. Had they taken action the later incidents would not have taken place.”

In another clash between the CPI-M and Trinamool workers in the Kasba area of south Kolkata, several workers from the two parties were injured. Some people were detained by the police, following which locals demonstrated outside the Kasba police station.

The CPI-m also alleged widespread attacks on its workers at Khanakul, Haripal, Dhanekhali and Chuchura of Hooghly district.