West Bengal: Normalcy returns to riot-hit Baduria, say police

Kolkata, July 9: Reeling from communal violence that broke out on July 3 over a Facebook post, West Bengal's riot-hit Baduria town on Sunday saw life returning back to normalcy, the state police said.

The adjacent areas of North 24-Parganas district were also peaceful. "It is peaceful now. Baduria, Basirhat, Swarupnagar and Deganga areas have not seen further violence," an official of the Baduria police station said.

Internet services though remained suspended in and around the area. The state government had on Saturday ordered a judicial probe into the communal violence in Basirhat, and continued a major shake-up of the police administration in the area by transferring two senior officers.

"We will conduct a judicial probe into the Baduria-Basirhat incident to take impartial action as per law. We want to know which were the forces which indulged in violence. We will also probe the media's involvement in spreading rumours," Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the media at state Secretariat Nabanna here on Saturday.

Banerjee said the state would provide all administrative inputs to the judicial commission. The Chief Minister has promised strong action against those responsible for the violence, and attacked the Centre for not carrying out its responsibility of protecting the international border.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party's members of Parliament Meenakshi Lekhi, Om Mathur and Satyapal Singh, who were tasked by party chief Amit Shah to report on the situation, arrived here on Saturday and straightway headed for Basirhat, but were stopped at Michaelnagar on the outskirts of the sub-divisional town.

IANS