NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday described the protests against his predecessor, Mamata Banerjee, at Hailsahar in North 24 Parganas as a reflection of “strong public anger.”Mamata Banerjee faced protests earlier in the day when a group of protesters allegedly surrounded her vehicle, raised “chor-chor” (thief, thief) slogans and hurled mud and slippers at her car. She had gone to meet the family of a Trinamool Congress (TMC) worker who allegedly died in police custody.Denying any involvement of the ruling BJP in the incident, Adhikari said, “You (Mamata Banerjee) have committed so much theft, you will have to hear people call you a thief.”He further claimed that the TMC supremo went to Halisahar without being invited by the deceased’s family and that the TMC worker’s family was “satisfied” with the police and administration.“Do not do this when the family is shutting the door. You are saying you will enter by force. Do it when people seek your help or intervention. This is the time for development. Do not go anywhere and do anything that disrupts normal life,” he added.The chief minister also questioned why his predecessor had not visited the family of “Abhaya” (fearless), the moniker given to the RG Kar rape and murder victim, on the second anniversary of her death.“You could have gone to Abhaya’s house today. You could have gone to Ratna Debnath with a towel around your neck and apologised, saying you had made a mistake and asking for forgiveness. I believe she would have forgiven you,” Adhikari remarked.Ratna Debnath, Abhaya’s mother, is now a BJP MLA. She had previously said she contested the recent West Bengal assembly elections to fight for justice and accused Mamata Banerjee, who was the chief minister at the time of the RG Kar incident, of failing to save “Abhaya.”Meanwhile, Adhkari accused Mamata Banerjee of trying to sabotage probe into the RG Kar incident, and questioned why would people not be angry with her.He asked: “You (Banerjee) killed Abhaya, went to destroy evidence and tried to buy her family with Rs 10 lakh. If people threw mud at your car, what else would they throw? Flowers?”Earlier, Mamata Banerjee was forced to pass through a police cordon as the demonstration briefly turned the road into a charged political theatre, with rival sides trading allegations of conspiracy, provocation and administrative failure.“My car has been attacked with stones, shoes and mud. This is nothing but a conspiracy. I had informed the police that I would be coming, but despite that, no security measures were taken,” she told reporters after reaching the area.The former chief minister also alleged that “large bricks” had been thrown at her vehicle.
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“My head could have been smashed. I could have died here,” she claimed, accusing the BJP-led state government of using “goons” to target her.Mamata Banerjee also trained her guns on CM Adhikari, saying she had “no particular anger” against the police but alleging that the force was being used at the behest of the state government.“The police are protecting the lumpens. Bengal has fallen into the hands of lumpens,” she added, saying her party would pursue the matter.
