BJP releases alleged Mamata tape asking candidate to frame SP, IC, Commandant in Sitalkuchi firing
Kolkata/IBNS: The West Bengal unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday released an audio tape, purportedly of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, where she was heard instructing her Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate from Cooch Behar's Sitalkuchi after the firing to not let the families of the victims claim the bodies till there was a rally with the dead. The alleged tape quoted the CM saying that from the central force commandant to the Superintendent of Police and the IC, all had to be framed.
The audio tape released in a press conference on Friday evening has not been verified by IBNS independently.
In the audio tape, Mamata was heard instructing her candidate Partha Pratim Roy to take out a procession (rally) of the bodies of the four people who were shot dead by CISF personnel at one booth.
The audio tape has been released by BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya and party MP Locket Chatterjee.
Mamata was heard asking Roy to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) through lawyers and not the family of the deceased.
She also said the FIR should be filed in a way that the SP and IC are also framed along with the CISF (mentioned as CRPF in the tape) commandant.
"We have to frame the SP and IC also," she was purportedly heard saying, asking the candidate to file FIRs after consulting lawyers.
Alleging minority appeasement, Chatterjee said, “Mamata Banerjee is trying to polarise people and we are afraid of the deterioration of law and order situation in the state.”
Post the violence in Sitalkuchi, Mamata Banerjee wanted to take out procession with bodies of those who died trying to capture booth 126. She spoke about framing the SP and IC for doing their job, asked TMC’s candidate to spread misinformation about detention centers to scare Ms. pic.twitter.com/517u7IulKH
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) April 16, 2021
Malviya said the BJP would submit the audio tape to the Election Commission on Saturday, when the state will go through the fifth phase of the polls.
TMC Reaction:
Meanwhile, in a reaction, TMC MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said the "tape shows that the central agencies are tapping phones."
"There is no point in complaining with the body which controls the election [read Election Commission] because we are not getting justice from it," he said.
(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh, Images by Avishek Mitra)
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.