BJP workers, police officer hurt in clashes during protest

Several persons, including a police officer, were injured today when BJP workers clashed with police in North Dinajpur and North 24-Parganas districts during their protest against what they alleged worsening law and order situation in West Bengal.
Inspector in-charge of Raiganj Police Station Gautam Chakraborty said that about 5,000 BJP activists blocked the Raiganj-Balurghat state highway in the Karnojora area in North Dinajpur district and started pelting stones at the passing vehicles.
The police responded by cane-charging the agitators in a bid to disperse them and in return the BJP protesters hurled bricks at them injuring the IC.
BJP district unit president Subhro Roychowdhury and three party workers were also injured in the violence, Chakraborty said.

The party supporters staged a similar "law violation programme" in front of the SDO office at Basirhat during which the protesters tried to break a police barricade. This resulted in a scuffle.
At least 30 BJP supporters were detained while seven policemen suffered minor injuries, the police said. Later the detainees were released.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said, "The people of the state want freedom from the misrule of the TMC and that is why they are participating in law violation programmes of the BJP."
Some BJP workers, including party national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh and Suresh Pujari, were injured in a lathicharge by the police during a law-violation programme in North 24-Parganas district last week, a claim the police had denied.

BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya last week had vowed to "intensify" the party's campaign against the Trinamool Congress regime in the state and said the party will not stop till TMC is defeated in next year's Assembly poll.