Mamata demonstrates against blood kit scam

Kolkata, Nov 1 (UNI) Demanding a CBI inquiry into the blood kit scam, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee led a demonstration in front of the state-run central blood bank in the city today.

Alleging that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was responsible for the supply of expired diagnostic kits to blood banks, Ms Banerjee said her party would continue movement till her demand was met.

'' The scam has an international magnitude and the Chief Minister is responsbile for this. A time will come when people who have taken blood in the state will be barred from entering other countries, '' she said.

The Trinamool Congress had also taken up a programme to gherao the state Health Department headquarters tomorrow.

The six-hour programme was organised by Trinamool Youth Congress in protest against the scam that triggered the fear of infected blood having been given to patients.

More than 100,000 blood kits, supplied by the company, had been seized following revelation of the scam.

Late last week, the Chief Minister also favoured a CBI inquiry into the whole affair, saying eight to ten other states, which received supply of kits from Monozyme India, might also have been affected.

DC DD(1) Gyanwant Singh said Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Punjab were among the other states affected by the blood kit scandal.

Meanwhile, the kit episode took a new twist today with prime accused Govind Sarda being granted bail by Calcutta High Court in an assault case.

The court, however, threw out his bail plea in the dud kit case in which he was arrested weeks ago.

Sarda wiil be in custody till further order.

The division bench of Justice D P Sengupta and Justice B Samaddar took up Sarda's petition pleading innocence.

Sarda said he did not assault a senior official of his company, Abhijit Sarkar.

Mr Sarkar, Zonal Manager of Sarda's company, had launched a complaint against the latter, saying he was forced to sign in a paper relating to dud kit case but he was assaulted when he refused to sign.

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