Ranaghat, Jan. 14: Ranaghat Police on Tuesday have started a case against West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on the basis of a complaint lodged Trinamul’s Ranaghat town secretary Krishnendu Banerjee for saying that whosoever will destroy public property will be ‘shot and killed’ when his party would come to power in the state.
Police have charged Ghosh for criminal intimidation, promoting enmity and hatred in religious groups, intention to cause injury, which area punishable offence under the Indian Penal Code. The charge for promoting hatred and enmity is a non-bailable one.
In Habra of North 24 Parganas, Trinamul’s town president Sitanghsu Das has also lodged a complaint at Habra police station with similar allegations against Ghosh for his ‘shot and kill’ speech in Ranaghat and demanded his immediate arrest.
While speaking in a public meeting in Ranaghat on January 12 organized by the party’s Ranaghat district organizing committee in support of the Citizen (Amendment) Act, 2019 Ghosh had allegedly made the controversial ‘shot and kill’ statement.
Ghosh in his speech said, “We will never silently watch some people damaging public property of crores of rupees and setting them on fire. We will shoot and kill them when coming to power”. He further said, “See in Assam and Uttar Pradesh, where BJP governments are in power…They shot those people and killed them like dogs”. He indicated that the state government apparently indulged the miscreants by taking no action against the arson.
Speaking to media persons, complainant Krishnendu Banerjee said, “Ghosh vitiated the auspicious birth anniversary day of Swami Vivekananda in Ranaghat. He firstly organized an unauthorized rally and spread venom from it. The culture of Bengal does not suit the way he talked and the language he used in the meeting. He termed the protestors of CAA as dogs and threatened to shot them. I have doubts if he has at all the credibility to lead a party at all”
“Considering the panic he has unleashed through the threat I have urged police to examine if Ghosh has any firearms with him, if he possesses any such firearm at all, is it a licensed one…this needs to be checked by the state home ministry and he must be arrested for such threat”, Banerjee added.
Reacting to the two FIR lodged against him, Ghosh, however, remained unperturbed and said, “I am neither surprised nor afraid. I will fight the case legally”.