At least two unidentified men attacked the car and robbed Anisur Rahman and his 24-year-old son, Abu Sufian, as the Congress leader was coming back home around the inner railway gate, Bethua-Dohri area, under the jurisdiction of the Bethuadahari police station, police said. The attackers, it is alleged, opened fire on the car and then attacked the father, and a son, with sharp objects. Injured and dead in the accident. Following the call alert from police, police Nakashipara station reached the place and started an investigation, however no one had been arrested as of today.

What happened, where,?

The murder was committed around 7pm on the night of Saturday, August 15, near the home of the victims in a small locality of Bethuadahari within the area of the police station in Nakashipara district in Nadia district. Nadia is the southern part of West Bengal, which has been in the news for a succession of political skimmings between members of the two main parties in the last ten years, especially in local body/topographic-level election campaigns for panchayats.

Early accounts, made by police officers and local party workers, suggest the attack was not a happy accident, but a coordinated ambush: the attackers say they blocked the off-road as soon as the vehicle began to make its way to the destination, implying the traffic route or movement may well have been anticipated. It will be a point of interest for detail investigators, as it indicates if the attack was done according to a victim’s timetable or more of a random attack. Note: The exact time of the attack, the number of attackers, and whether a weapon or vehicle used in the attack has been recovered will be unknown.

The Political Reaction

The Congress (I) of West Bengal also today called for a “black day” all over the State in protest of the killings – symbolic protests used by political parties in India for getting the attention of the administration, and compelling them to take hasty action.

Subhankar Sarkar, president of the West Bengal Congress, expressed his outrage over the incident and attributed it to the major intimidation of ‘threat to minority and opposition’ voices in the State as a whole. Former president of West Bengal Congress and five-time past Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also issued a statement calling for the an objective investigation and appropriate punishment for the culprits involved in the killings. The party was led by the party’s top brass, who were on hand with the bereaved family members, he added.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers at the local level went ahead to stage an allegation that the attack was planned “from the jail” by a TMC leader who is already in jail, summoned to be Jubbar Sheikh. A local Congress official, Tipu Sultan, was quoted as asking the government to conduct a detailed and unbiased investigation to find out the truth of the allegation. It is noteworthy that this assertion of TMC role comes from the mouths of the members of Congress and is not a police discovery or the formal charge. [NEEDS VERIFICATION: Official confirmation or denial a motive, AND legal status of Jubbar Sheikh’s case.

Why do the killings in Bengal catch national attention?

West Bengal has a long and fraught history of political violence, which can be traced back over decades to a period of Left Front rule; from 2011 when Trinamool Congress took over as government and become a serious competitor and more recently, with the BJP rising to the status of a credible player in the State. In fact local killings with party feuds between TMC and opposition party, or among TMC party members has been a regular occurrence and occasionally got national press attention particularly during election times.

If there is any attack that pumps up the symbolic freight for the Congress party whose organisational strength has dipped significantly in West Bengal in the last 20 years which earned from the presence of TMC and the BJP, this attack on a local leader has more than symbolic meaning. Shared with the family being an emblems of human tragedy and at the same time being a political talking point about the safety of opposition workers in the state, an issue that the party will be pushing for in future elections.

For the future, here is what it means:

Police will first try to determine “a motive” in the killing: it may be a targeted political killing, or a personal or business dispute or it could be linked to local criminal activities, as suggested in some discrepancies that occurred in the past with regard to killing of Bengal politicians. The charge against a jailed TMC leader will have to be independently assessed and given due consideration before it can be considered without prejudice to the petitioner, which will be nothing more than a one-sided allegation.

The focus will be on the coming days whether the state administration orders an investigation team which is not part of the regular police force, whether the central agencies involves in the case, and how the ruling Tamil Chettiya Muttiambarai Central (TMC) will react to the allegation against one of their members. The case too is likely to come into the political discourse when it comes to law and order in West Bengal, a topic already under the spotlight for the past several years between the government and Opposition parties.