Case against Vijayvargiya, Mukul Roy, other BJP leaders for 'unlawful assembly'

Kolkata: Kolkata Police have initiated two suo motu cases against senior BJP leaders, including national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and national vice-president Mukul Roy, for allegedly assaulting cops and violating the norms of the Disaster Management Act on Thursday during a protest march to Nabanna.

On Thursday, BJP rallies led by Vijayvargiya, Roy, Locket Chatterjee, Arjun Singh, Rakesh Singh, Bharati Ghosh, Jayprakash Majumdar and others were stopped by the police in Hastings area and near the Howrah Bridge. It is alleged that the BJP leaders and workers disobeyed the instructions given by the police and tried to proceed towards Nabanna. When the police tried to stop the saffron party workers, they were assaulted. BJP workers reportedly pelted stones at them.

In retaliation, the police burst tear gas shells and sprayed water to disperse the violent mob. Later on Thursday night, Kolkata Police initiated two suo motu FIRs at Hastings and North Port police stations against the BJP leaders along with unknown party workers for violating the Disaster Management Act along with assaulting police personnel and making unlawful assembly.

Apart from Kolkata, FIR has been initiated in Howrah as well against Bharatiya Janata National Youth Morcha president Tejaswi Surya along with BJP leaders Soumitra Khan, Nitish Pramanik, Sanjay Singh and others for allegedly assaulting police personnel and making unlawful assembly along with violation of Disaster Management Act in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

This apart, Vijayvargiya on Thursday tweeted a picture of some policemen on the roof of a building and claimed that cops were hurling bombs aiming his party workers at the rally. On Friday, Howrah City Police claimed it to be a fake picture as the policemen were throwing tear smoke munitions. Posting a screenshot of a tweet by a journalist, Howrah City Police on Friday wrote on their Facebook page, "a video of police throwing tear smoke munitions yesterday in Howrah is being misrepresented in social media. A police team was stationed at some rooftops and they used tear smoke only when the agitators breached the barricade and started pelting stones. Some media persons of national TV channels were also present there."