A 57-year-old woman is said to have panicked after being summoned by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) hearing, and was found dead near the railway tracks close to Burdwan Junction railway station on Thursday.
The deceased has been identified as Fulmala Pal, a resident of Roynagar under the Bardhaman (Uttar) Assembly constituency, near the district headquarters. Her body, badly mutilated, was recovered from beside the tracks. According to the Government Railway Police (GRP), she was hit by a running train and the incident is being treated as a case of suicide.
Pal was scheduled to appear before the ECI for a hearing on 5 January. In the draft electoral roll, her name appeared in Part No. 285 with serial number 293. While neither her husband nor her son was summoned, a notice was sent to her residence directing her to attend the hearing.
Following the incident, the Trinamul Congress (TMC) staged protests, alleging that the EC’s “arbitrary” notice was responsible for the woman’s death. Party workers, led by local MLA Nishith Malik and the district president of the party’s youth wing, Rasbehari Haldar, placed the body on the road and held a protest for nearly an hour.
Addressing the agitators, Malik alleged: “The Election Commission is arbitrarily issuing notices to deliberately harass and put mental pressure on our party workers.” He further claimed that the woman was unable to cope with the mental stress and that the EC must take responsibility for her death.
The deceased woman’s son-in-law is an elected karmadhyaksha of the TMC-run Burdwan-II Panchayat Samiti.
Following instructions from TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, state minister Swapan Debnath visited the bereaved family to offer his condolences.