Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in West Bengal have exhorted people to take up arms against the state police, and said that law-enforcement officials were their opponent and not the Trinamool Congress, Times Now reported.
At a rally on Sunday, the party’s Birbhum leader Kalosona Mondal claimed that police personnel were selfish and corrupt and would do nothing to save even their own colleagues.
“Don’t harm Trinamool party members, otherwise a case would be filed against you,” said Mondal. “Trinamool isn’t your opponent, the police is. Instead of harming Trinamool workers, if you harm the police, then nothing will happen.”
State BJP Mahila Morcha President Locket Chatterjee asked women supporters to “take up arms” and resort to violence, India Today reported.
“If we depend on the administration, we won’t be able to do anything in our future,” Chatterjee said. “A few incidents that have occurred in the past few days, the police have taken no steps. That’s why I am requesting the women to equip themselves with arms in order to protect themselves.”
The party’s state president Dilip Ghosh last month had claimed that the police were registering false cases against his party cadre. “A day will definitely come when we will strip you of your [police] uniforms,” he had said. “The police aren’t worth wearing the uniform.”
Ghosh had claimed that the BJP would identify the police officers who had registered false cases, “They will have to pay us back from their own pockets,” he had said.
BJP workers have clashed with the police on several occasions, with many suffering injuries in the process.
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