RailEnquiry

BOLPUR: Trouble broke out at the Bolpur (Santiniketan) station on Monday morning after railway hawkers found the body of one of their colleagues from a part of the premises. The hawkers claimed that Tapan Das alias Fekna, 30, was severely assaulted by a railway policeman and denied treatment. Initially, they vented their ire on the Government Railway Police (GRP) and ransacked the outpost at the station. Sometime later, they came to know that Das was attacked by an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and turned their attention to the RPF office. They ransacked the office, demanding arrest of the ASI. The hawkers also pelted stones at trains and squatted on the tracks for more than an hour. Among the trains affected was the Howrah-bound Down Santiniketan Express and was delayed by an hour.Details are still unclear, so far as the hawker's death is concerned. According to railway sources, Das's colleagues claimed that he was nabbed by ASI A K Chowdhury on Sunday evening and thrashed. He was then made to wait inside a dingy room at the station and provided no treatment even after he collapsed. A section of hawkers, however, claimed that Das was beaten up on Monday morning and died thereafter. Chowdhury is absconding.The stones pelted by the hawkers smashed window panes and damaged the coaches of the Santiniketan Express while passengers cowered inside. Some of the passengers ran out of the station, fearing for their lives. The hawkers refused to move from the tracks or allow the police to take away Das's body. When Manab Mukherjee, an officer from the Bolpur police station, reached the spot to take stock of the situation, the hawkers beat him up and set ablaze his motorcycle. Mukherjee had to be taken to the Bolpur subdivisional hospital.On receiving information, Prasanta Kumar Chowdhury, SDPO, Bolpur, reached the station with a large police force and tried to reason with the hawkers. When this didn't work, SP Hrishikesh Meena reached the station with more policemen. When the hawkers refused to move from the tracks and allow the body to be taken away, the policemen resorted to lathicharge. The Santiniketan Express finally departed at 1.45pm."A complaint has been lodged against the RPF officer accused of assaulting the hawker. I have directed my officers in Bolpur to arrest him but he seems to have gone into hiding. The cause of the death is still not clear though," said Milan Kanta Das, superintendent of railway police, Howrah. Meena said that a case will also be lodged against the hawkers who assaulted the police officer from Bolpur and set his motorcycle on fire."It is being alleged that the hawker was beaten up. There are also reports that the hawker was drunk. Everything will become clear once we receive the post-mortem report," he said.Das's mother Mira claimed that her son - who sold chop and muri at the station - was fine when he left home in the morning. "Later, somebody told me that he had fallen ill. I reached the station and found him dead," she said.A section of hawkers claimed that Das and Chowdhury were drinking together when an altercation broke out between the two. Chowdhury thrashed the hawker to a point when his condition turned serious. The hawkers' association secretary Santanu Mukherjee demanded an inquiry into the incident.It was, however, the passengers who suffered the most in the terrible heat wave that is sweeping across Birbhum and other parts of West Bengal. Sujoy Ganguli, a passenger, said he sought shelter in a corner of the station with his son after violence erupted. and the hawkers started damaging railway property."S C Sahu, chief security commissioner, Eastern Railway (ER), has ordered an inquiry into the incident. If it is confirmed that the man died due to beating by an RPF officer, compensation will be paid to his next to kin. The RPF officer will be punished in accordance with law," an ER spokesperson said.