India / BJP leader shot dead near WB police station, party calls for bandh

Kolkata: BJP leader Manish Shukla was shot dead on Sunday evening, about 20 km from north Kolkata, when he was speaking with some locals and party workers near a local police station.

The BJP has called for a 12-hour bandh (shutdown) in the Barrackpore area today, blaming the ruling Trinamool Congress for the killing.

The Trinamool Congress has denied the charge and blamed the incident on an internal feud within the BJP.

Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who condemned the incident in a late night tweet, has summoned the DGP (Director general of police) and home secretary to the Raj Bhavan at 10 am.

According to eyewitness accounts, several men on motorcycles suddenly drove up to Manish Shukla, a member of the BJP's Barrackpore organisational district committee and a former councilor, and riddled him with bullets.

He was reportedly shot in the head, chest and his back, first rushed to a private hospital in Barrackpore and then Kolkata; however he died.

A huge team of cops rushed to quell the tensions that erupted with the BJP supporters heckling Barrackpore police commissioner Manoj Verma and additional commissioner Ajay Thakur, and demanding the immediate rest of the accused.

Senior BJP leaders who rushed to the spot blamed the Trinamool Congress for the attack and called for a 12-hour bandh on Monday.

BJP general Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya described Manish Shukla as "a close associate of BJP's Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh" and blamed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for his death.

"We have no faith on the police. As the killing happened in front of the police station, there has to be some link. There should be a CBI probe into it. Arjun Singh had said earlier his life and those of his associates were in danger," he said.

"I regret Mamta Banerjee that you are resorting to such tactics. The people will never forgive you," he added.

"Shri Manish Shukla, BJP councillor from Titagarh, shot dead in front of a police station... Lawlessness in Bengal under Mamata Banerjee is at its peak. Political murders seem to have state sanction and have increasingly become a norm. This violence won't stop till Pishi is out," BJP's Amit Malviya tweeted.