Malda incident aimed at disrupting police action: CPI (M)

New Delhi: Backing the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government's claim that the Malda violence was not a communal incident, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday said the violence was aimed at disrupting police action against organised crime in the region.

Speaking to ANI, CPI (M) leader Nilotpal Basu accused the BJP of politicising the issue.

"From the beginning, it has got politicised. The main issue there is law and order. A section of criminals who wanted to protect their fiefdom of organised crime, they used the mobilisation of some Muslim organisation over the statement of a former Hindu Mahsabha leader, Tiwari," Basu said.

"They attacked the police station and tried to take away the files during the melee. It was really an organised violence against the police administration, it was not a communal riot," he added.

Earlier, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delegation, headed by party general secretary and in-charge of West Bengal Kailash Vijayavargiya, met President Pranab Mukherjee and submitted memorandum on the Malda violence.

The BJP general secretary accused the Trinamool Congress government of protecting criminals saying, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was shielding the perpetrators of violence in Malda.

The delegation had earlier met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and demanded a high-level probe into the matter, alleging it had links with fake currency and narcotics trade and infiltration.

This meeting came in wake of a 'fact-finding' team of the BJP was not allowed by the state administration to visit violence-hit Kaliachak which falls in Malda.

The BJP has alleged that a police station was torched so as to burn the records of local criminals involved in a host of unlawful activities.

However, the TMC has accused the BJP of working to communalise the atmosphere in the state, which goes to the polls in a few months.