Life in Kolkata came to a standstill even before Cyclone Aila hit on Monday, killing 17, including a woman, and injuring many. High-velocity winds and heavy rains lashed the coastal areas of the state from Monday morning. All flights, including international ones, at the NSC Bose International Airport were suspended from 1400 hours, airport sources said.
The weather system moved west-northwestward and concentrated into a depression on Saturday at 8.30am, close to west of Andaman Islands, the bulletin said.
A Sikh Indian Police Service officer, who was deputed at Dhamakhali to prevent senior West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari from visiting restive Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district, got agitated after a group of activists of the saffron party allegedly hurled the 'Khalistani' jibe at him.
Kolkata and parts of West Bengal were on Wednesday rocked by successive mild tremors in a span of less than two hours, following the massive temblors in Sumatra. The first tremor was felt at 2.42 pm and the second at 4.13 pm, said Regional Meteorological Centre Director G C Debnath. Tremors were also felt in North and South 24 Parganas districts adjoining Kolkata and in Darjeeling and Siliguri in north Bengal, official reports said.
Banerjee said there is no video footage or any other proof to substantiate claims of the central forces.
A team of CBI officials reached CID headquarters Bhawani Bhawan in Kolkata before 4 pm. But the handover from the state agency took place at around 6:48 pm, despite the Calcutta high court setting a deadline of 4.15 pm.
'For around five hours the storm, reportedly the strongest one ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal, that mother of many a deathly vortex, shook Kolkata like a toddler playing with a rattling toy,' observes Debashish Chatterjee.
The chitfund scam in West Bengal claimed its twelfth victim on Monday with an agent of a ponzy scheme found hanging in his home at Basirhat in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district.
Tension was palpable in the area, and a large police contingent was deployed to prevent any further flare-up.
Saifuddin Laskar (47), TMC area president of Bamungachi area in Joynagar was shot dead from close range near his house by miscreants when he went out to offer prayers in the morning, the police said.
On Monday, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya's promise to the people of Nandigram that land would not be acquired till the people were convinced about the need for it.
A team of CBI officers reached his residence in south Kolkata's Chetla area along with a large contingent of central forces in the morning, officials said.
Amphan was the fiercest Cyclone to hit West Bengal in the last 100 years. A large part of the state was without power as electricity poles have been blown away. Mobile and internet services were also down as the cyclone has damaged hundreds of communication towers.
One person died "accidentally" when he had gone out fishing, she said.
A majority of its Trinamool Congress coucillors switched over to the BJP.
Nine MLAs, including Babul Supriyo, took oath as ministers in West Bengal on Wednesday, in a major reshuffle of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party might conduct the Lok Sabha polls in December itself, claiming that all choppers have been booked by the saffron party for campaigning.
Rainwater, which clogged most of the city links almost, disrupted surface transport with trams out of service for the second day on Wednesday.
The MP, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a bandage on head, said that Verma led a police contingent which attacked a "peaceful" protest by the BJP over the capture of its party office at Shyamnagar.
The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
Under the stewardship of the then TMC national general secretary Mukul Roy and North 24 Parganas TMC district president Jyotipriyo Mullick, he joined the party and quickly ascended in power, becoming a close associate of Mullick.
BJP chief J P Nadda on Thursday launched 'Lokkho Sonar Bangla' (target to build golden Bengal) manifesto crowdsourcing campaign to seek suggestions from more than two crore people in West Bengal ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
The apex court, which dismissed the pleas filed by the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission (SEC) challenging the high court order, said the tenor of the high court order was ultimately to ensure free and fair election in the state.
The move came after a nine-member delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs from West Bengal met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought his intervention and action against the perpetrators of the crime.
Around 200 people belonging to the Sikh community staged a demonstration in front of the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Kolkata on Wednesday, expressing solidarity with an Indian Police Service officer who had alleged that West Bengal party leader Suvendu Adhikari labeled him as a 'Khalistani'.
"My father and uncles are no more, our family is devastated," said an inconsolable Avijit, the son of Haran.
Alleging that there had been politicisation and criminalisation of government officers in the state, the BJP leader, who was on a two-day visit, said the TMC government had stopped sending crime statistics to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) after 2018.
One of the girls was missing for the past four years and the others for about six months, the police said.
Banerjee has held five rallies in Kolkata in 11 days against the CAA.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday asserted that she would win the ongoing state polls despite injury and eventually aim for power in Delhi.
A high voter turnout of nearly 71 per cent was recorded till 5 pm on Saturday in West Bengal's four assembly constituencies where bypolls were held, an official said.
Shah accused the ruling TMC in Bengal of "spreading canards" about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
The BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal after winning 77 seats in the assembly polls last year, failed to win even a single civic body.
BJP chief Amit Shah had set a target of winning 22 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 seats in West Bengal.
Jha, who had been on run since Wednesday when four people breached security protocol inside and outside Parliament, walked inside a police station in the New Delhi district Thursday night and is now being interrogated by a counter intelligence team, the police source said.
The division bench said it deemed it appropriate to stay the special court's order and direct that the "accused person shall be treated to be in judicial custody till further orders".
Justice Jay Sengupta directed that the probe will be monitored by it and the SIT will file a progress report of the investigation on February 12, the next date of hearing in the case.
In a setback to the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed its plea challenging a Calcutta high court order transferring to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the probe into the January 5 attack on an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team in Sandeshkhali, allegedly by supporters of the now suspended TMC local strongman Shahjahan Sheikh.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
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