Central Force jawans run amok in polling districts

People in all the three districts mainly in Kolkata witnessed the highhandedness of the Central Force jawans and to some extent of a section of the policemen in the guise of conducting free and fair election.

Total 680 companies of Central Forces along with 26,000 policemen personnel were deployed on Saturday to ensure no untoward incident took place during the election.

Interestingly, despite such an elaborate arrangement several Trinamool Congress workers were attacked at various places when the jawans of the Central Force and policemen were carrying out raids based on the “fake allegations” of CPI(M) and Congress.

Senior Trinamool Congress leaders including the party’s candidate from Ballygunge Subrata Mukherjee said that the Central Force jawans have come to maintain peace during the election. Instead there were reports claiming that they were beating up people. Incidents such as police officers and Central Force jawans making some youth who were returning from jobs after night shift do squats while holding their ears and conducting search operations in houses in villages of Hooghly and South 24 Parganas based on mere allegation that outsiders were hiding in those places, have come to light.

There were repeated allegations against the jawans about creating panic among voters. According to a section of political analysts, the CPI(M) and Congress took up the technique of raising wrong allegations before the election officials to mislead them. Getting baffled by the false allegations, the jawans had been chasing common voters triggering panic among them.

Some jawans beat up a Trinamool Congress supporter when he was heading towards the polling station to cast his vote. The incident took place at Bhangar in South 24-Parganas. A camp office of Trinamool Congress was also damaged at Baruipur when some CPI(M) supporters raised allegation that Trinamool Congress workers were assembling at the spot. It was being alleged that the camp office was being damaged despite there was only two Trinamool Congress workers were sitting at the camp office.

There were many such occasions when people thought of returning without voting finding a huge contingent of the security personnel marching on the roads and asking people not to assemble in a place. Later they went to vote when the matter became clear to them.

A youth, Sanjit Aash, suffering from jaundice, was beaten up allegedly by some jawans when he was going to cast his vote at booth number 170 at Arambagh in Hooghly. He was taken to hospital with severe injuries. He told the police that he was being beaten up despite saying that he was not a worker of any political party and just a common voter.

In similar incident Sheikh Azgar Ali, a physically challenged person, was beaten up near booth number 43 at Pandua. His family members alleged that being physically challenged the youth had entered the polling station with a wooden stick. The jawans threw his wooden stick and beat him up with the butt of their guns.

“The central paramilitary forces in the name of maintaining law and order are misbehaving with the voters and common people. They are frisking people without any reason, browbeating voters. We condemn this. But irrespective of such intimidation, we will win the polls,” senior TMC leader and state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said.

“The paramilitary forces have a language barrier. But local police is there to help them overcome that. We are 100 per cent sure about winning the polls after the results are announced,” senior TMC leader and state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said after casting his vote in Behala West Constituency.