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Politics Over Murshidabad Murders: RSS, BJP Claim School Teacher Was Their Supporter

The police have declined to comment on whether Bandhu Gopal Pal was a member of RSS or not.
Representative image.
Stringer India / Reuters
Representative image.

MURSHIDABAD — The gruesome triple murder of a school teacher and his family in Murshidabad took a political colour on Thursday with the BJP and its ideological mentor — the RSS — claiming that the victim was their supporter.

The BJP and the RSS said though the primary school teacher Bandhu Gopal Pal was not their active member, but at times he had participated in the weekly ‘milan’ programmes organised by the Sangh.

The police have declined to comment on whether Pal was a member of RSS or not.

The bodies of the 35-year-old teacher, his pregnant wife Beauty and 8-year-old son Angan were found lying in pools of blood in their house at Jiaganj in Murshidabad on Tuesday when the Durga Puja festivities were on.

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The three were murdered by unidentified miscreants, a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted:

“Warning: Gruesome video. This has shaken my conscience... a RSS worker Sh Bandhu Prakash Pal, his eight months pregnant wife & his kid were brutally slaughtered in West Bengals Murshidabad. Not a word by the liberals. Not a letter by 59 liberals to Mamata. Nauseating Selectivism!”

The Trinamool Congress declined to make any comment on the issue as the matter is under investigation.

Forty nine eminent personalities from across the country had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July this year to take action against incidents of mob lynching in the country.

The police have started an investigation into the brutal killing and three persons have been detained.

According to locals, the Pal family had moved to Jiaganj around five years ago

The police officer said that prima facie it appears that the Pal family was murdered by unidentified miscreants on Monday night. When the locals did not see them at the local community puja pandal on Vijayadashami on Tuesday, they went to Pal’s residence and found the door bolted from inside.

The people then informed the police, who broke open the door and found the three bodies lying in pools of blood, he added.

Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted that West Bengal Police has confirmed to India Today that Murshidabad murders do not have any political or communal angle.

(With newsroom inputs)

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.