A case has been registered in Tripura against TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, MP Dola Sen, West Bengal education minister Bratya Basu and other senior leaders of the party for allegedly obstructing police officers from performing their duties.

Kiran Kumar, the superintendent of police (SP) in Khowai district, said a suo moto complaint was filed on Tuesday against the TMC leaders, who had “misbehaved” with officers on duty on August 8.

“We booked them on August 10 under Section 186 (obstruction of public servants in the discharge of his public function) and 36 (common intention) of the IPC. The FIR pertains to their entry into the Khowai police station… They will be summoned,” the SP stated.

Reacting to the development, Ashishlal Singh, Tripura Trinamul state president said “Tripura Trinamul Congress will not be cowed down by police atrocities or state-sponsored crime”. Singh alleged, “The police here are acting at the behest of BJP. I personally have given the names of those who hurled stones at our vehicles and injured Sudip Raha, Jaya Dutta and others but four days have passed and none were arrested in this case”.

“The police misled us on Saturday night and took us to police lines, saying it wasn’t safe for the Trinamul delegation to return to Agartala. The next morning, a huge contingent of police arrived and arrested us for violating pandemic law as night curfew starts from 7 pm in Tripura.” said Singh.

He confirmed, “Yesterday, police conduct raids in the houses of Trinamul activists and slapped criminal conspiracy cases against some of the party workers in Ambassa. The BJP goons backed by police identified our party workers and police started arresting them from 2.30 am.”

Kunal Ghosh, Trinamul spokesperson and state general secretary has denied the charges against them brought by the police.” We wanted to know that why our injured youth and student leaders were arrested but the police did not arrest the BJP goons who attacked TMC leaders and injured them. They even injured one policeman.”

Ghosh said, “We had said that our lawyer is coming from Agartala to Khowai and before the lawyer arrives, our leaders should not be produced in court. We also wanted to know under which section they were arrested.

“We have the right to arrange for legal defence for our party activists, which was denied to them by the Biplab Deb regime in Tripura. Seeking democratic rights peacefully cannot be equated with obstructing government servants,” Ghosh added.

It may be noted that Abhishek Banerjee had rushed to Tripura following the arrest of the youth activists. In a video that went viral on social media, the TMC national general secretary was seen raising his finger to enquire why his supporters were arrested “after having faced assaults”.

Banerjee had posted on Twitter that he was bringing with him to Kolkata the injured party workers, who were “denied medical attention” in Tripura. The chief minister Mamata Banerjee too criticised the way the TMC activists were allegedly treated by the Tripura police.

The  BJP MLA and leader of opposition in Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari dismissed the allegations that the arrested Trinamul activists were denied basic medical aid and water, stating that the charges were “baseless” and she should be getting the “highest award for falsehood”.

“Hereby refuting baseless allegation of the TMC Supremo that her assets weren’t even provided with a glass of water in Tripura. Would request her to accord herself the prestigious Mithya-Shree Award (award for lies). Please accept this request & kindly make us feel obliged,” Adhikari tweeted.