Trinamool billboard row: One more party activist arrested, total arrests rise to 14

Kolkata, Aug 29 (AHN) Kolkata Police have arrested one Trinamool Congress activist in connection with the row over the removal of an illegal billboard from the roof of Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee's house on Camac Street in Kolkata on Thursday.

The arrested person has been identified as Toufik.

According to a city police officer, the arrested person took a lead role in the creating obstructions for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the police personnel on Thursday afternoon.

Toufik had been arrested by the sleuth of the Anti-Rowdy Squad (ARS), a wing of the detective department of the city police.

However, after arresting Toufik, the ARS sleuths have handed him over to the police personnel of the Shakespeare Sarani Police station, where three FIRs have been registered in relation to the billboard row earlier in the afternoon.

With the arrest of Toufik, the total number of arrests in the matter had increased to 14.

The 13 persons who were arrested earlier by the police in the same matter were produced at a lower court in Kolkata on Friday and the judge of that court remanded them to judicial custody till September 3. Their bail pleas by the counsels of these 13 persons were rejected.

Of the three FIRs registered at Shakespeare Sarani Police Station, one had been filed based on a complaint lodged by a police officer of the same police station, the second based on a complaint by a cop posted with adjacent Park Street Police Station and the third based on a complaint lodged by the KMC.

The two FIRs, filed on the basis of the complaints filed by the officer of Shakespeare Sarani Police Station and the KMC, named Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee; Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien; and party leaders like Humayun Kabir and Baishwanar Chatterjee, among others.

Tension broke out in front of Abhishek Banerjee's Camac Street office on Thursday afternoon, after the KMC officials, accompanied by Kolkata Police personnel, reached there to remove the illegal billboard.

Abhishek Banerjee, O'Brien and their other Trinamool Congress aides blocked the way of the KMC staff and the police personnel, with the Diamond Harbour MP challenging the legal validity of the KMC order for removal of the billboard.

The Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha MP said that the notice was invalid because the billboard picture was not attached to the order copy.

The KMC officials returned to get a revised order.

They returned soon with the revised order, and this time the police cordoned off the entire area. Thereafter, KMC officials, accompanied by the cops, climbed the stairs to reach the roof of the building to remove the billboard.

Abhishek Banerjee's aides tried to block their movement by forming human walls on the staircase. Those blocking the path included some Trinamool women activists.

A scuffle between the police and Trinamool supporters followed.

Finally, the police cleared the way for KMC officials to reach the roof, break the billboard and remove it.