Two workers of the Trinamool Congress were allegedly stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in the last two days in different districts of West Bengal, The Indian Express reported. The body of Kartik Dhaki, 45, was found with stab wounds in Jagatballavpur area of Howrah on Friday. On Thursday, Allauddin Sheikh, 54, was stabbed in Harishchandrapur area of Malda. He died in a hospital the next day.
While Dhaki worked as the reliever for a polling agent, Sheikh was a former Congress worker, Trinamool Congress members said.
Dhaki went missing after an altercation with Bharatiya Janata Party workers on Thursday. Dhaki’s wife, Sulochana, said her husband was abducted and killed, but the police had not yet acted on her complaint, The Times of India reported. “My husband was so badly thrashed by BJP workers during panchayat polls that he was in hospital for five days,” she claimed. At that time, the party and I lodged a complaint against 18 BJP workers, including local leader Balaram Ghorel.”
Sheikh’s family, meanwhile, lodged a complaint against Congress-backed miscreants. The Trinamool Congress has also accused the Congress supporters of orchestrating the murder.
“We have been saying that our workers are being killed from the beginning of the panchayat polls,” Trinamool Congress General Secretary Partha Chatterjee said.
However, both the Congress and the BJP claimed that “infighting” within the ruling party in West Bengal was responsible for the murders.
Several workers of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress have died in the state over the past few weeks. On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a plea seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the deaths of two BJP workers in Purulia district.
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