Five arrested for planning to attack Bengal CM's residence

Kolkata: Five people were arrested on Thursday on the charges of planning to attack the residence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kalighat here.

The accused formulated a plan for the crime on a WhatsApp group, Kolkata Police said.

The arrested persons, including two women, have been identified as Krishna Ghosh, Barsha Ghosh, Subham Sensharma, Arijit Dey and Swagoto Banerjee.

Dey and Swagoto were the admins of the said WhatsApp group.

On the social media group, several written and voice messages were sent or forwarded calling for assembling at a place for attacking the residence of the Chief Minister.

All five have been booked under various sections of the newly enacted Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

Meanwhile, three individuals, who gave the call for Nabanna (march to Bengal secretariat) on August 27 condemning the rape and murder of a junior doctor of state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata earlier this month, have also been arrested by the city police.

The arrested individuals are Probir Das, Sayan Lahiri and Suvankar Halder. While Halder and Lahiri were arrested earlier, Das was arrested on Thursday.

They had addressed a press conference on the protest match on Monday, a day before the march.

Several pockets in Kolkata and Howrah turned into virtual battlefields on Tuesday following clashes between the cops and protesters participating there, in which several police personnel and protesters were injured.

A total of 220 persons were arrested by the cops in that connection, in addition to 25 preventive arrests made before the march.

The city police claimed that the situation over the march on Tuesday could have turned even more serious if those 25 preventive arrests were not made.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has already taken charge of the R. G. Kar case investigation.