After West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s outburst in Bhatpara after she was met with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans, the police has slapped an FIR against “unknown” people for “wrongful restraint” and “criminal intimidation”.
On Thursday, 30 May, Banerjee was met with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans in West Bengal’s Bhatpara in the North 24 Parganas district. The Chief Minister who was on her way to a sit-in protest stopped her convoy to confront the sloganeers. She could be heard saying, “I will skin you alive”, in a video of the incident that went viral. She also asked the officers present with her to take down the names of those at the spot.
According to The Times Of India, the police picked up several people from Bhatpara in night-long raids the following day. The police commissioner, however, denied to the publication that there was any connection between the Jai Shri Ram FIR and these arrests.
The state BJP leadership has raised concerns on these arrests, questioning their ‘intent’.
Among those against whom charges were levied, eight were arrested and then later released on bail.
The incident in Bhatpara was the second time that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was seen losing her cool at ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants. A similar video of hers went viral during the election campaign too after she lost her cool at sloganeers in Bengal’s Medinipur district.
Since the Bhatpara incident, clashes were reported in the state’s Kanchrapara also when BJP supporters started shouting Jai Shri Ram slogans outside the venue of a meeting of TMC leaders.
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