Congress members on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs have written to committee chairman Radha Mohan Das, seeking an examination into conduct of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in West Bengal and police action against workers and supporters of the opposition party after the results for the assembly elections were declared on May 4.
In his letter, O’Brien’s claimed over 240,000 CAPF personnel were deployed during the assembly polls and that over 700 companies – or around 70,000 CAPF personnel – continued to remain deployed after the results to keep a check on any post-poll violence. The letter alleged that more than 70 Trinamool leaders were taken into custody and that a series of custodial deaths of TMC workers had taken place after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in the state. It is governed by rules that are to prevail notwithstanding ‘any judgment, decree or order of any court’. Such a command can be turned against political opponents, students and citizens in any state where it is deployed.”
Backing O’Brien’s demand, the Congress said his proposal should be “clubbed” with the party’s own concerns over the alleged use of force by police authorities. “His demand sits inside the same question as ours, which is how the police forces under the ministry of home affairs use force against citizens, and under whose orders,” the letter said. “Unless this committee acts, what happened in West Bengal and at Jantar Mantar will not stay exceptional, and it will become the ordinary use of these Forces,” Congress said, adding: “This command is chosen at the top by the Union government and deployed inside the states.
