Charging that West Bengal has become a “jihadi hub” under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, BJP today decided to send a three-member team to the state to look into the abduction of a teenaged girl, alleging that the accused are being patronised by a the ruling party.
The party also sought to dispel impression of the BJP-led Centre and the state’s TMC government coming closer, saying the two parties can never be together and it will oppose the regional party “tooth and nail”.
Party secretary Siddharth Nath Singh told reporters that recent incidents, including abduction of young girls, terror activities and money laundering, “prove that the state has become a jihadi hub”.
“West Bengal is becoming a safe haven of terror. Jihadi training camps are running there,” Singh, a party co-incharge of the state, said while citing a National Investigation Agency
(NIA) chargesheet. He alleged that people from outside were coming for terror training in the state.
Taking up the case of the alleged abduction of a 14-year-old girl, he alleged the local police instead of probing the case was threatening the family, asking them not to register a case.
The state BJP unit sat on a 24-hour dharna in the area, Singh said, alleging that the accused were being protected by a minister in the state.
The party has also taken up the matter with the National Commission for Women which, he said, which has assured it of sending a team to the state.
“As we have taken up these issues, people are trying to give a communal angle to it. This is not the case,” he said.
A three-member BJP team, including Saroj Pandey, Arjun Ram Meghwal and M J Akbar, will go tomorrow to probe the issue.
Kidnapping of more young girls have occurred in the state, he said. “It is tragic that such incidents are happening under a woman chief minister,” he said.
Asked of the attack on the TMC government meant that its reported bonhomie with the Centre was over, he said there could be support on certain issue of development.
“As a political party, we will support it tooth and nail,” he said.
In the last session of Parliament, TMC had lent its support to the government on some key bills and also to the land boundary deal with Bangladesh.