'When There's Parivartan in Bengal, There'll Be No Trace of Your Body': BJP's Dilip Ghosh Warns Cops

Kolkata: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh has threatened senior police officers in the state with dire consequences if the latter continued to harass his party workers in the district.

Stating that family members of police officers would not be able to find a trace of their bodies and perform their last rites if they had to face Ghosh’s ire, the BJP leader said no senior functionary of the ruling Trinamool Congress would be able to help or save them then. He also asked his party workers to beat up policemen and Trinamool Congress supporters if attacked and promised to take responsibility for the same.

“I heard that they (TMC leaders) have sent a police officer to Midnapore to terrorise, beat and harass our party workers. We ignored the matter. Tobe ami je din marbo, tomar laash khunje pawa jabe na… bole dicchi… Tomar barir lok tomar mukhey agun dite parbe na (But now I would like to tell you, that the day I will start attacking, no one would be able to trace your body. Your family members would not be able to perform your last rites,” Ghosh said at a rally in Mecheda in the district on Monday.

Further hinting at police officers being protected by state minister Subhendu Adhikari and other TMC leaders, Ghosh said “No Adhikari, Banerjee, Chatterjee, Mukherjee will save you. You are earning money from corrupt practices and being rewarded for framing our workers in false cases. You are sending your children to expensive schools… Buying expensive saris for your wives. We are keeping a track on it. All the names are there in my notebook. The day there will be a parivartan in Bengal, you will see your position. If your baap ka baap (someone as senior as) Chidambaram can go to jail, who are you?” he added.

“If you are a true BJP worker, go and beat policemen and TMC workers who are attacking you, rest I will take care. I dare you (police and TMC workers) to touch me. They have framed me in so many false cases. They slapped murder cases against me, though I have done nothing. The day I will take law in my hand, their genealogy will be finished,” he added.

This was not the first time that Ghosh spoke in such a tone against the state's police force. In 2017, the Bengal BJP unit landed into an embarrassing situation when he asked party workers to beat policemen if the latter hesitated to take action against Trinamool Congress supporters. Ghosh had then made the comment after his partymen were beaten up by Trinamool Congress workers in south Kolkata and instead of taking action against the accused, the local police had allegedly arrested BJP supporters.

“It is our democratic right to beat up policemen who are biased and specifically targeting us on instructions of the TMC,” Ghosh had said in a public meeting in Howrah. In December 2018, Ghosh, while addressing a rally in Birbhum district, had warned Kolkata Police of ‘stripping’ its officers of their uniform if the party came to power.