KOLKATA: A young BJP worker was found hanging from a tree in West Bengal's Purulia district at dawn today, in what the party alleged was a political murder linked to the violent civic polls in the state earlier this month. 20-year-old Trilochan Mahato was hanging by a nylon rope not very far from his home at Supurdih village in Purulia's Balarampur block.
Scrawled on the back and front of his white T-Shirt was a chilling message, repeated in a note found on a piece of paper left at his feet dangling just inches from the ground.
Roughly translated, the messages said, "This is for doing BJP politics from age 18. Been trying to kill you since the vote. Failed. Today you are dead."
Near the body, according to Trilochan's father, Hari Mahato's police complaint, a broken pen, a broken refill, a mobile, wallet, slippers were found flung around. And Trilochan's new bicycle.
BJP president Amit Shah tweeted he was "deeply hurt by the brutal killing of our young karyakarta."
In the tweet that had graphic images of Trilochan's body, he said, "A young life full of possibilities was brutally taken out under state's patronage. He was hanged on a tree just because his ideology differed from that of state sponsored goons."
The BJP has demanded a CBI inquiry. Trilochan, said BJP, had worked very hard during the recent Panchayat polls in which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress suffered some setbacks in Purulia.
In the Balarampur block where Trilochan's village is located, BJP won majority in seven gram panchayats and the panchayat samiti, snatching them from Trinamool.
A senior Trinamool leader from Purulia, Shrishti Dhar Mahato, alleged Trilochan was killed because of infighting within the BJP. "I want a CID (the state-run Criminal Investigation Department) probe into the murder. Today there is so much infighting within the BJP for a chair, I think the BJP killed him," he said.
Trilochan's father, in his police complaint, named six men he claimed had fought with his youngest son on 14 May during election at the poll booth in the village and threatened to kill him.