The North 24 Parganas district police has launched a manhunt for Subhranshu Roy, the son of Union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy. State chief electoral officer Sunil Gupta on Thursday said that the district magistrate (DM) of North 24 Parganas informed him that the superintendent of police (SP) and the additional SP were monitoring the raids in search of Mr Roy.
The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday had asked the North 24 Parganas district administration to take proper action as per law against Mr Roy who is the prime accused for the attack on some EC officials at Bijpur in North 24 Parganas on Tuesday.
“Subhranshu Roy has not yet been arrested. We have not got any information that he has surrendered himself in a court. The DM of North 24 Parganas has told me that raids are being carried out in search of him,” Mr Gupta said. Mr Roy has been fielded from Bijpur Assembly constituency by the Trinamul Congress. On being asked whether he would be debarred from contesting the elections if arrested, Mr Gupta said: “There is no such legal provision.”
The CPI(M) on Thursday hoped that the EC would take care of the issue. “Now the general administration and the police administration are directly under the control of the EC. The EC has also already suspended inspector-in-charge of Bijpur Partha Pratim Roy for his negligence in arresting the prime accused. We hope that the EC would fulfil its responsibility in this case,” CPI(M) state secretariat member Rabin Deb said. Meanwhile, reacting to this development, Mukul Roy said: “If the presence of a person in a spot means that the person is the prime accused then why the police did not arrest Bansagopal Chowdhury who was present when a leader of our party was murdered in Jamuria in Burdwan recently.”