West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Friday accused "politically rejected individuals" of orchestrating the violence that erupted in Baraipur following the alleged rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl and warned that those responsible for provoking unrest would be punished severely.
Adhikari said the disturbances were not so much an explosion of public anger as a collective attempt to subvert law and order. He said police are now identifying people who could have been directly involved in the violence as well as those who might have instigated it through phone calls, messages and social media posts.
"Even as the police were appealing for calm and assuring people that action would be taken, instigation continued from behind the scenes, both in Baraipur and elsewhere," the Chief Minister said.
Adhikari alleged that the violence involved organised attacks on security personnel and attempts to create large-scale disruption. Stones were thrown at Central Armed Police Forces, police officers—including women personnel—were assaulted, and even an alleged conspiracy to trigger a railway accident by placing heavy steel beams on railway tracks.
Calling the incidents a serious attack on public order, the Chief Minister said the police had been given complete autonomy to investigate every aspect of the violence.
"Those who instigated the unrest from the background, irrespective of their political affiliation, will be taught a lesson. This is my explicit direction to the police. A strong message will be sent, and no one will dare to repeat such actions in the future," he said.
The violence erupted around the time of a reported rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl. At the time, during the chaos, local resident Indrajit Mondal was said to be dragged out of his home and lynched by an angry mob after he was mistakenly labeled as one of the accused in the crime.
Adhikari said Mondal’s murder was part of a larger conspiracy to incite instability in the state.
"Their objective is to derail the progress and development that Bengal is witnessing under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership," he said.
Police have intensified their crackdown after the violence. In total, 20 people have been arrested in connection with the lynching of Indrajit Mondal, attacks on police personnel, stone-pelting, vandalism, arson and other violence in the region.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the girl’s murder took a dramatic turn earlier this week when one of the prime accused, Prabhas Mondal, was killed in an alleged police encounter. Police claimed he snatched a service weapon from an officer and attempted to escape during a crime scene reconstruction exercise, forcing officers to open fire.
The encounter, the first police action since the BJP government took over in May, occurred in the wake of growing public pressure on the handling of the case. Baraipur's security is now at a high level and the murder case and the violence that happened there are under investigation.
With tensions still lingering, the state administration has said it remains committed to restoring normalcy and ensuring that all criminals involved in the crimes and subsequent unrest are brought to justice.
