Kolkata, April 28: Ahead of the second phase of assembly elections in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has once again approached the Kolkata High Court. This petition was filed against the preventive arrests made in the state from the morning of April 26 to the evening of April 27, in accordance with directives from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
On Monday evening, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal reported that 1,095 preventive arrests had occurred in the last 24 hours since Sunday evening, with a total of 1,583 arrests over the past 36 hours.
Kalyan Banerjee, a four-time Lok Sabha member from TMC, presented the case before the bench led by Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen. He asserted that at least 350 of these preventive arrests directly violated a previous order issued by the same bench on April 22. This order had directed against arbitrary preventive arrests, labeling individuals as “potential troublemakers.”
In his petition, Banerjee requested an urgent hearing on the matter. The court accepted the petition, and the case is expected to be heard in the afternoon session on Tuesday.
In its earlier ruling on April 22, the Kolkata High Court allowed preventive arrests under the provisions of preventive laws but stated that no individual could be arrested or detained solely on the grounds of being labeled a “potential troublemaker.”
Among the total preventive arrests made from the morning of April 26 to the evening of April 27, the highest number occurred in the East Bardhaman district (479), followed by North 24 Parganas (319), South 24 Parganas (246), Kolkata (North) electoral district (109), Hooghly (49), and Nadia and Howrah, each with 32 arrests. One of the preventive arrests was of Narugopal Bhakt, a TMC councilor from Ward 22 in Bardhaman city, East Bardhaman district.
The total number of arrests also includes four individuals detained following clashes between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and TMC workers in Jagatdal, North 24 Parganas, on Sunday night. Those arrested include Kaushik Das (27), Sikandar Prasad (39), Gopal Raut (40), and Shyamdev Shaw (55).
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VKU/AS
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