Eight more arrests made for attack on J P Nadda's convoy

These fresh arrests increase the number of those arrested in the matter to 15

Eight persons were arrested in relation to the attack on BJP president J P Nadda’s convoy during his visit to West Bengal taking the total number of arrests in the case to 15.

According to sources in the South 24 Paraganas district police, the latest arrests were made in the early hours of Saturday. The accused were produced before a district court and remanded to police custody for seven days.

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District police sources said that after looking into the video footage of the attack on Nadda’s convoy officials of the Falta and Usthi Police stations launched a search operation on Friday night and the eight persons were arrested in the early hours of Saturday.

The BJP president’s convoy was attacked on Thursday while he was on his way to a rally in Diamond Harbour. The vehicles in his convoy were pelted with stones, bottles and sticks.

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While Nadda remained unscathed, several senior BJP leaders such as national general secretary and co-observer in West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya and national vice president Mukul Roy were injured in the attack. Nadda alleged that eight BJP workers sustained severe injuries and had to be admitted to hospital.

The incident had started a tussle between the Centre and the State Government with the former summoning the State’s Chief Secretary Alapon Bandyopadhyay and Director General of Police Virendra to Delhi to discuss the law and order situation in Bengal.

However, the Chief Secretary in a letter to the Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla requested him to “dispense with the presence of the state officials” in the meeting which was scheduled to be held on December 14 in Delhi.