Municipality chairman shot dead in WB

The chairman of a municipality in Hooghly district was shot dead by unidentified assailants when he was returning home on a motorbike, the police said today.
Bhadreswar Municipality Chairman Manoj Upadhyay, also a Trinamool Congress leader, was shot from point blank range late last night.
"The assailants fired at Manoj from point blank range. At least two bullets hit his chest and abdomen. Doctors declared him dead at a local sub-divisional hospital," Piyush Pande, Commissioner of Chandernagore Police Commissionerate, said.
While one person was arrested, five others were detained for interrogation in this connection, he said.
"The attackers were in a group. They stopped his motorbike and fired at him near a club on G T Road on his way back home late last night," Pande said.

Tension ran high in the area following the killing of the 45-year-old unmarried leader and several senior party functionaries reached Bhadreswar.

Urban Development and Municipal Affairs Minister Firhad Hakim and Agricultural Marketing Minister Tapan Dasgupta, besides TMC youth wing president Abhishek Banerjee visited the area to defuse tension.
Upadhyay was targeted as he was taking action against various illegal activities in the area, Hakim said adding that anti-socials were hired for the killing from outside.
Dasgupta, however, claimed that two TMC men who are planning to join the BJP might have link with the killers.
District BJP president, Bhaskar Bhattacharya described the incident as a result of internal bickering in the ruling TMC.