Centre offers probe into attacks on Mamata Banerjee

Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has instituted inquiry into the incident

The Centre on Wednesday sought to pacify West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, by offering to probe the assault on her and Finance Minister, Amit Mitra.

Last week, Mitra was heckled and manhandled by Left activists outside the Planning Commission office in Delhi.

"I have instituted an inquiry into the incident and the special secretary of the Home Department is looking into it," said Sushil kumar Shinde, Union Home Minister, who was in Kolkata on Wednesday to chair a meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council. The meeting was attended by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and representatives of Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar.

Banerjee was discharged from a city hospital on Saturday and resumed office on Wednesday.

“They had an iron rod, tried to hit me with it... They can kill me but they cannot stop me," Banerjee was earlier heard saying.

Over the last week, West Bengal has been at the receiving end of sporadic incidences of skirmishes among political outfits.

On April 10, Presidency University in Kolkata was vandalized by a group of people carrying Trinamool flags. It all started with the death of SFI activist Sudipto Gupta, who was allegedly beaten up by the police at a rally. The chief minister had termed the incident as a ‘petty matter’, which incited protests from the CPI(M) students’ wing, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), across West Bengal and culminated into an attack on Banerjee and Mitra in Delhi.

Even as Shinde reached out to Banerjee, Partha Chatterjee, Bengal industry minister, on Wednesday made it clear that unless the attackers in Delhi were arrested, Trinamool would continue with its protests.

“The entire episode of attack over our chief minister and finance minister was masterminded by the Left,” Chatterjee said.

"A ministerial-level delegation from the state will soon leave here for Delhi after the chief minister fully recovers. Now we will take up this issue at the ministry level and if that too fails, we shall go for a bigger movement," Chatterjee said.

Yesterday, Trinamool MP, Kalyan Banerjee said if Banerjee was attacked again, the assailants' "hands will be broken."