West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday slammed the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the mob killing of a police officer, alleging that the state police is carrying out "fake encounters after fake encounters".
Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh, who initially investigated the 2015 mob lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, was killed in violence that erupted in Bulandshahr on Monday.
A 20-year-old bystander also died in the violent confrontation between a mob of some 400 people, including right-wing activists, and police apparently after the discovery of cow carcasses strewn in a nearby jungle.
Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress chief, expressed sympathy with the family of Singh.
"They have murdered a police officer who was investigating the case. You have seen that day before yesterday they murdered the officer in Bulandshahr district. We sympathise with him. They are carrying out fake encounters after fake encounters and killing people," she said at a public rally in Bajkul in Purba (East) Midnapore district.
Following the tension in Bulandshahr on Monday, Banerjee on Tuesday directed the West Bengal police to step up vigil near the inter-state boundary to prevent "outsiders" from entering the state and trigger clashes like the one witnessed in Uttar Pradesh.
She had asked state Security Adviser Surajit Kar Purkayastha to set up watchtowers and install CCTV cameras in inter-state boundary areas.
The West Bengal chief minister has alleged that people from neighbouring Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha were entering the state and trying to disrupt peace.
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