Kolkata: A day after the Election Commission disallowed any political party from entering into Cooch Behar following the death of four people in the firing of the central forces, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who earlier announced to visit Sitalkuchi in Cooch Behar district on Sunday, accused the poll body of hatching conspiracy against her and alleged that the restriction was imposed only to stop her from meeting the bereaved families.
“What has happened in Sitalkuchi is a complete genocide and what the commission is doing after that is unprecedented. First, they have killed people and now they are trying to hush up all the evidence. They are only trying to satisfy the BJP. They imposed this restriction only to stop me from meeting the bereaved families,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a press conference in Siliguri on Sunday morning.
“I wanted to meet the family members to express my solidarity and they made this law only to stop me from going there. This is unprecedented. How can the commission give clean chit to the forces that kill people? First you kill the people and then you don’t allow others to see them. This is what is going on,” the chief minister said.
Mocking the ‘Model Code of Conduct’ as ‘Modi Code of Conduct’, the chief minister committed that she would give the left-over of her election expenses to the families of the deceased. “I cannot commit anything right now because of the election but our chief secretary will do whatever the government can to help the people and I have asked all our party members to give a subscription of 100 rupees which will be given to the families,” she added.
Observing the day as ‘Black Day’ and demanding the resignation of the Home Minister, the chief minister said, “I have seen photographs of the dead bodies and all had bullet injuries on the upper part of their bodies. How is this possible? Even I know that the basic training is that the forces should fire on the lower portion of the body. They have sprayed bullets”.
The chief minister also questioned the deployment of CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) in the election. “The CISF is trained for guarding the industrial areas and they have no training in controlling and managing the mob. Why are they deployed in the election? They don’t have the basic training even,” she said.
The chief minister then spoke to two family members of the deceased and assured them that she would stay beside them and do everything possible to help them. “I shall try to come to you on April 14. I shall definitely come,” she concluded. (IANS)