Rajkumar Roy

KOLKATA: The epicentre of panchayat election violence shifted from south to north Bengal during Wednesday’s re-polling in 573 booths, leaving behind chilling images of goons armed with muskets carrying away a ballot box in Malda.

The cycle of bloodshed that began on Monday, the day of the elections, claimed yet another life on Wednesday, taking the body count in the state up to 27.

Late Tuesday, the mutilated body of a presiding officer was found on the railway tracks in North Dinajpur . Rajkumar Roy (in picture), a schoolteacher and a father of two, had gone missing from a polling booth on Monday. The mysterious death of Roy (42) triggered widespread protests on Wednesday, with hundreds of poll officials, mostly teachers, blocking busy roads alleging murder and demanding security. When the SDO reached the spot to defuse tension, he was heckled. The polling officials were firm on not joining counting duties on Thursday, when results of the violence-scarred rural polls will be announced.

Keeping in mind the volatile situation, the state election commission tightened security at 291counting centres. It directed district magistrates and superintendents of police not to allow victory rallies till the entire counting process was over.

‘Admin tried to pass off death as suicide case’

Angry colleagues of presiding officer Rajkumar Roy alleged that the local administration hadn’t even bothered to lodge a police complaint after he went missing and instead tried to pass off the death as a case of suicide. While SP Shyam Sing refused to comment, state secretariat sources blamed a Left Front backed teachers’ union for fomenting trouble after the recovery of the body.

Sensing the discontent, the West Bengal government handed over the probe to the CID, which later claimed to have got an undertaking from the driver of Radhikapur Express that an unidentified person had been knocked down by his train.

Md Kasiuddin, a supporter of an Independent candidate from Humdam village in North Dinajpur’s Goalpokhar, was killed in an armed clash between Independents and Forward Bloc supporters on Wednesday. Police, however, refused to count it as a poll-related death, claiming it to be the fallout of a land dispute. Opposition CPM and PDS are likely to file petitions documenting the violence and deaths at the Calcutta high court on Thursday.

