Doctor murder: BJP activists storm Nandigram police station during protest

BJP activists on Friday stormed the Nandigram police station in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district during a gherao programme organised in protest against the rape and murder of a woman trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata.

Over 100 BJP supporters stormed the police station on Friday morning by breaking through barricades and scuffled with the policemen who made attempts in vain to stop them.

The protestors, of whom several were women, raised slogans and stayed inside the police station for some time, before exiting the premises.

A police officer said the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and policemen present at the spot did not take further action to prevent the situation from escalating.

The BJP activists also blocked the thoroughfare in front of the police station before dispersing.

The protest was organised as part of a statewide ‘thana gherao’ programme over the issue.

Nandigram, which was the epicentre of TMC’s anti-land acquisition movement of 2007-08, is the turf of Suvendu Adhikari, who jumped the ship from the ruling party in the state to the BJP in 2020 and won the assembly segment in the 2021 polls by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Adhikari had on Thursday said that the gherao agitations would be “democratic and non-violent”, and would voice people’s disenchantment with the ruling party in the state on the issue of women’s safety.