(This story originally appeared in on Jun 01, 2019)

KOLKATA: A day after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost her cool on being greeted with shouts of “Jai Sri Ram”, police on Friday slapped an FIR against “unknown” people accusing them of “wrongful restraint” and “criminal intimidation”.Banerjee was passing through Bhatpara in North 24 Parganas district when the incident happened. Bhatpara is in the heart of the North 24 Paragans industrial belt with a substantial population of Hindi-speaking voters. It is also part of the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency, where BJP defeated sitting Trinamool MP Dinesh Trivedi Police picked up several youths in night-long raids from the area but commissioner Tanmay Ray Chaudhuri insisted there was no link between the “convoy-blocking” FIR and the arrests. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh, however, said there could be no confusion about the “real intent” of the arrests.The youths were booked for “petty offences” and eight of them were arrested. They were later freed on bail.Eyewitnesses said that about 25 men had raised slogans. “It was sporadic and no one stopped the CM’s convoy as the police are now claiming. Around 11.30 pm, 15 men came to the locality and 17 of my neighbours were whisked away. All except eight returned in the morning,” said Balaram Thakur, a Bhatpara resident.Video clips of the CM getting down to confront the men shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ had gone viral. A furious Banerjee was seen asking her security officials to note down the names of the men. “What do you think of yourself? You will come from other states, stay here and abuse us? I will not tolerate this. How dare you abuse me?” she was heard saying.