Arrest warrant issued against minister

Straining relations further between the Trinamool Congress and former ally Congress, a court in West Bengal issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Minister of State for Railways, Adhir Chowdhury for his alleged involvement in a murder in 2011.

While the Union minister called it “politics of vendetta” on the part of the ruling party, Trinamool leaders claimed that Chowdhury could not be arrested because he is absconding.

The MoS Railways told reporters from Delhi that not only is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee trying to frame him, she is trying to malign him further by claiming that his absence from Bengal is intentional. “I want the state government to know that I will be in the state on October 1. The CM’s  vendetta is because I have been made the MoS Rail, a chair she has always coveted,” Adhir said.

The arrest warrant was issued on Thursday for his alleged involvement in the murder of Md Kamaruzzaman, a Trinamool leader from Adhir’s home district Murshidabad, in 2011. Although Chowdhury was not named in the initial charge sheet, things changed after the district’s Superintendent of Police changed in 2012. The police filed a supplementary charge sheet on Wednesday, naming the Union minister.The case was filed on the basis of a FIR lodged by Neela Hamid, Kamaruzzaman’s wife.