The police arrested 25 BJP workers including seven women for staging demonstration outside the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Thursday.
The security outside the state secretariat was beefed up following the "unprecedented" incident. Never before has any political party managed to reach up to the main entrance of Nabanna to stage demonstration breaking Section 144 of the CrPC.
Questions have already started cropping up on the role of the police as they had failed to identify the BJP supporters who had been loitering outside the state secretariat in small groups for quite some time before staging agitation against the alleged "irregularities in the recruitment process of primary school teachers". Usually, the police put security barricade and block any rally from approaching towards Nabanna at much ahead of the state secretariat.
Initially, the police had arrested two to three persons when they found them moving around the parking lot outside Nabanna. But there were 20 others present in the area who were standing or walking around posing as if they came to the state secretariat for some important work.
A BJP worker, who bought a packaged drinking water from a shop outside Nabanna, took out a party flag from his pocket and started shouting slogans. Rest of the BJP workers, who were standing in small groups, followed him and brought the party flags out.
The on-duty policemen immediately put up security barricades and restricted them from approaching near the gate of the state secretariat. A large contingent of police headed by senior police officers was pressed and they arrested the BJP workers. They were taken to the lock-up of Shibpur police station.
Soon after the agitation, policemen posted at the entry of all the roads leading to Nabanna were found keeping a close tab on the people passing through the area.
The state Home department sought a report in this connection to ascertain the steps needed to ensure that such incident doesn't take place again.