'MHA, state governor must intervene the West Bengal post poll violence under article 355 of Indian Constitution'

Pune, May 4: Soon after the Election results were announced on May 2, the State of West Bengal is witnessing unprecedented terror in the form of widespread violence in the entire State. Amidst the post poll violence, the Legal Rights Observatory in a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the West Bengal Governor has asked the authorities to intervene the #BengalViolence under article 355 of the Constitution. 

 

To note, article 355 of the Indian Constitution says that it shall be the duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every State is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

 

"There is a serious likelihood that the civilian population would be at risk of physical abuse or death, if the Ministry of Home Affairs doesn’t intervene under Article 355 of the Indian Constitution. Such treatment would constitute serious violations of the human rights. These rights as encapsulated by international instruments are; Article 6 of the ICCPR: The right to life, Article 7 of the ICCPR: no one shall be subjected to torture, cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", noted Adv Gautam Jha and Adv Pankaj Kumar.

 

 

Within 24 hours of elections results, at least a dozen of people have been reported dead in post poll violence in the state of West Bengal, a figure that may be higher than the number of those killed during the month-long polls. "There is a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population in the State of West Bengal. There is no State Protection available to the victims and the survivors of these widespread and systematic violence, because the persecutory agent is the State in of West Bengal", it added urging the Ministry to take drastic steps to protect the lives of the civilian population of Hindus in Bengal.

 

 

 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called up West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar today and expressed his concern over post-poll violence in the state. In a tweet on Tuesday, the Bengal governor said PM Modi spoke with him and expressed his serious anguish at law and order situation in the state. It is informed that the BJP has moved the Supreme Court over violence and BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia in his petition has demanded a CBI probe into violence.

 

 

After the results of the Bengal Assembly election were announced on Sunday, the BJP said one of its party offices in Hooghly district was set on fire and some of its leaders, including Suvendu Adhikari, were harassed by TMC activists in other parts of the state. A local BJP leader claimed that TMC workers, shortly after the defeat of their party candidate Sujata Mondal, set on fire the BJP’s Arambagh office. “The TMC, in a bid to avenge the defeat of its candidate, indulged in acts of arson and torched our party office,” the local BJP leader claimed.

 

 

Further it is yesterday that the Bengal wing of BJP claimed that at least six of its workers were killed across the state since the assembly results were announced. The BJP has noted that a hundred party offices and houses of BJP workers were ransacked across the state as the counting progressed, and the trends became clearer. In a tweet, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party's in-charge for Bengal, said its four workers were killed and over 4,000 houses ransacked in incidents of post-poll violence.

.

.