BJP Alleges Trinamool Leader's Link With Suspect In Bengal Realtor's Murder

A day after a real estate developer was shot dead in full public view in West Bengal's Howrah district, the BJP has alleged a Trinamool Congress MLA's links with one of the suspects in the case.

Tension prevailed after the shootout in Pilkhana in the early hours of Wednesday, CCTV visuals of which showed 27-year-old victim Safiq Khan having a verbal exchange with one of his attackers and then collapsing after being shot in the head and chest repeatedly by two assailants. The footage showed that the first shot was fired on the victim's head from behind, even as attackers continued to pump bullets into Khan's chest after he had collapsed.

While a mob brutally assaulted a journalist who reach the spot to cover the incident, locals protested police inaction, blocked the adjacent GT Road and burnt tyres.

Khan's family claims the suspects had asked him for money, alleging old enmity to be the cause behind the shooting.

The suspects Harun Khan and Rafakat have gone missing and no arrests have been made so far. Harun Khan, the BJP alleged, has close links with local TMC MLA Goutam Chowdhury. Union minister and BJP leader Sukanta Majumdar alleged that the murder footage revealed that Harun Khan had earlier pictures of him riding pillion on the MLA's motorcycle and attending the ruling party's public events.

Chowdhury visited the victim's family and said that the murderers won't be spared. "I have no knowledge of the real estate rivalry, but such criminals will gain no entry in this area ever again. They will be arrested by the police and face justice," he said. As for his links with the suspect, the Howrah North MLA said, "I don't know him. Thousands of people come to political rally."

Alleging yet another instance of the collapse of law and order in the state, the BJP sharpened its poll pitch in the election-bound state to claim that "the people of West Bengal want relief from this climate of fear and insecurity persisting as Mahajungle Raj".

The party's IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, called the murder a "cold, calculated execution". "This goes beyond a single act of violence. It signals something far deeper, an erosion of deterrence, a growing belief among TMC cadre that the law can be defied without consequence," Malviya wrote on X.