Bengal polls 2nd phase: 1,095 preventive arrests made in the last 24 hours

Kolkata: Ahead of the second and final phase of the West Bengal Assembly polls for 142 constituencies on Wednesday, the state and Kolkata police and central paramilitary forces, in joint operations at different pockets in the state, have made a total of 1,095 preventive arrests during the last 24 hours. According to statistics provided by the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the preventive arrest figure during the last 36 hours is 1,583. "These arrests have been made on the basis of their past records of involvement in election-related violence, due to which such persons have been identified as trouble-makers. One of the preventive arrests had been that of Narugopal Bhakat, the Trinamool Congress Councillor of Ward 22 of Burdwan town in East Burdwan district," a CEO’s office source said. District-wise, the maximum arrests have been made in East Burdwan district at 479, followed by North 24 Parganas at 319, South 24 Parganas at 246, the electoral district of Kolkata (Uttar) at 109, Hooghly at 49, and Nadia and Howrah at 32 each. The total arrest figure also includes the four arrests in connection with the clash between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress activists at Jagatdal in North 24 Parganas district on Sunday night. These four are Koushik Das, 27, Sikander Prasad, 39, Gopal Routh, 40, and Shyamdev Shaw, 55. Since the election dates were announced, the Election Commission of India (ECI had been stressing the identification of the potential trouble-makers and putting them under preventive arrests to prevent incidents of violence before, during, and after the polls. Recently, the ruling Trinamool Congress also approached the Calcutta High Court apprehending the arrests of 200 of their party leaders and workers. However, on April 22, a division bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen ruled that preventive arrests could be done in accordance with the provisions of the laws concerned. --IANS src/vd