Kolkata, March 28 (IANS) Two men of West Bengal Police's Special Branch were suspended after BJP leader Rahul Sinha on Monday accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of using police to carry out a failed sting operation on him and demanded a CBI probe into the matter.
Sinha said the two had called on him at the party state headquarters and offered him a "fat amount" to "cooperate with them" in smuggling cattle to Bangladesh.
"I held them by the collar, slapped them and pushed them out of the office. Our partymen then dragged them to the police guards posted near our office," Sinha said at a hurriedly-called media conference here.
He claimed that the two SB personnel were assistant sub-inspector Subhasish Roychowdhury and constable Aminur Rahman were later taken into custody by Jorasanko police station officers. The BJP has lodged a police complaint and also moved the Election Commission demanding proper action.
Kolkata police Deputy Commissioner (HQ) Suprotim Sarkar said both Roychowdhury and Rahman have been placed under suspension pending an enquiry, and deputy commissioner (central) was looking into the matter.
Sinha claimed it is "clear Mamata Banerjee, who holds the police portfolio, tried to carry out a sting operation to frame the BJP and counter the fall out of the Narada sting video".
Video footages of a purported sting operation released by a portal Narada News showed a number of Trinamool Congress leaders including former union ministers and incumbent state ministers, MPs and MLAs allegedly taking bundles of cash.
On the action against the two Special Branch officials, Sinha said: "I don't know what will happen next. These two are only sacrificial goats. A probe has to find out who are the real culprits.
"So I feel the chief minister should ask the CBI to carry out the inquiry. Who had sent them, why they had come, on all these issues CBI should conduct an impartial probe."
