Kolkata rape and murder case: BJP activists storm Nandigram police station during protest

BJP supporters staged protests at Chinsurah, Siuri, Midnapore and Bankura police stations. File | Photo Credit: PTI

BJP activists on Friday (August 23, 2024) stormed Nandigram police station in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal during a gherao programme organised to protest the rape and murder of a woman trainee doctor at a government hospital in Kolkata.

BJP supporters also staged gherao protests at Chinsurah, Siuri, Midnapore and Bankura police stations.

More than 100 BJP supporters stormed the Nandigram police station on Friday (August 23, 2024) morning, breaking barricades and scuffled with policemen who tried in vain to stop them.

The protesters, including several women, chanted slogans inside the police station for some time before leaving.

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A police officer said the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and police officers present at the scene did not take further action to prevent the situation from escalating.

BJP activists also blocked the road in front of the police station before dispersing. The protest was organised as part of a nationwide ‘thana gherao’ programme on the issue.

Nandigram, which was the epicentre of the TMC’s anti-land acquisition movement of 2007-08, is the territory of Suvendu Adhikari, who quit the state’s ruling party to join the BJP in 2020 and won the assembly segment in the 2021 assembly elections by defeating chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh led the protest in Midnapore. “This government has lost all right to stay in power,” he said.

Mr Adhikari had said on Thursday that the gherao protests would be “democratic and non-violent” and would express people’s disenchantment with the ruling party in the state over the issue of women’s safety.