Trinamool leader shot dead in broad daylight in Bengal

In a shocking incident at Hanskhali in West Bengal's Nadia district, a local Trinamool Congress leader was shot dead in broad daylight by miscreants on Friday morning.

The deceased has been identified as Amod Ali Biswas, who was an area vice-president of Trinamool at Hanskhali.

According to eyewitnesses, Biswas came to the market on Friday morning and ordered a cup of tea at a tea-stall, something he did regularly. Suddenly, a group of around eight bike-borne miscreants arrived at the spot and started firing indiscriminately at Biswas from a close range. All the miscreants had their faces covered. A profusely bleeding Biswas died on the spot, while the assailants fled from there.

The body has been sent for post-mortem with a large contingent of police patrolling the area, which has been gripped by tension.

Biswas' family members claimed that there had been attacks on him earlier as well.

"His rivals in the locality had attacked him with crude bombs thrice in the past. However, he had managed to escape on all three occasions, something which he could not do on Friday," said Biswas' wife.

Meanwhile, a political slugfest has erupted in the state following the killing.

Senior state BJP leader Rahul Sinha, who's a former national secretary of the party, said that the murder was a fallout of the factionalism and infighting in Trinamool Congress.

"Before the upcoming panchayat elections, different groups of the ruling party are trying to establish their supremacy in different pockets of the state, with party insiders often becoming the victims," Sinha said.

On the other hand, Trinamool's Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen claimed that goons backed by the opposition parties were behind the murder of Biswas.

"Before the panchayat elections, the opposition parties are deliberately trying to create disturbance in the state," he said.