Purulia: Kin of deceased BJP worker blames TMC

The family of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker Dulal Kumar, whose body was found hanging from a pole in West Bengal's Purulia district on Saturday, said the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) was responsible for Kumar's death.

"Police came and said that it was suicide, but it was not suicide. How can it be suicide when there was no problem in his (Dulal's) life? He was not indebted to anyone, and everything was there in his life. Why would he commit suicide? He was killed by TMC people after repeated threats," Dulal's father Mahavir Kumar told ANI.

Echoing a similar opinion, Dulal's father-in-law Genesh Kumar claimed that his son-in-law was murdered by TMC workers, who then hanged his body from a pole.

The body of Dulal, who went missing on Friday, was found hanging from a pole in Balarampur of Purulia district.

The incident surfaced a week after the body of another BJP activist, Trilochan Mahato, was found hanging from a tree in the same district on May 30.

While police cited suicide as the cause of Dulal's death in the postmortem report, BJP leaders, like the victim's family, have held the TMC responsible for the incident.

Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani slammed the TMC-led West Bengal Government for failing to maintain law and order in the state.

"The ruling party in West Bengal is a part of a 'consolidated opposition' which is fighting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As a result, they're indulging in targeted killings of BJP workers. The TMC government has failed to maintain law and order and isn't able to deliver justice to families of victims," she said.

Moreover, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar equated the alleged murder of BJP workers in Purulia to a 'political murder'.