BJP alleges 'political message' behind killing of Suvendu Adhikari’s close aide

Kolkata: The BJP's West Bengal unit president, Samik Bhattacharya, on Thursday described the killing of the close aide of the party's senior leader Suvendu Adhikari as a "planned political murder" and claimed that it was designed to cause instability in the state.

"It was a targeted violence," he told reporters at the Barasat Hospital where the post-mortem of Chandranath Rath was carried out.

Adhikari's executive assistant, Rath, was shot dead by bike-borne assailants who intercepted Rath's vehicle near Doltala in Madhyamgram around 10.30 pm on Wednesday, forced it to stop and opened fire at point-blank range before fleeing.


"By the killing, did the assailants want to send a political message to BJP or was it intended for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is arriving in Kolkata in two days?" he posed and said that he would inform Governor R N Ravi about the incident.

The BJP leader linked the killing to a broader pattern of post-poll violence, pointing to the recent deaths of three BJP workers and another in Basirhat who was shot at.

He described the Barasat-Madhyamgram border as a "sensitive zone", prone to serious criminal activity, including the alleged forging of Aadhaar, ration and voter ID cards used by infiltrators during the TMC rule.

Issuing a stern warning to troublemakers, Bhattacharya said, "Our restraint should not be mistaken for weakness."

The state BJP chief said he could not get into details as the investigation is underway and the model code of conduct was still in place.

The TMC had denied involvement in the killing and alleged that BJP-backed miscreants had killed three of its workers over the preceding three days. PTI