Bhabanipur: The mother of Chandranath Rath, the executive assistant to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari who was assassinated on Wednesday night, has broken her silence to demand justice for her son. Speaking to local media on Thursday, she called for life imprisonment for the perpetrators, stating that while she cannot seek the death penalty as a mother, those responsible must spend their lives behind bars. The killing took place in Madhyamgram, North 24 Parganas, just 48 hours after the declaration of the assembly election results, an event that has sent shockwaves through the political landscape of West Bengal.
Rath was travelling near Doltala when his vehicle was intercepted by bike-borne assailants around 10:30 p.m. The attackers forced the SUV to a halt before opening fire at point-blank range, leaving the victim with no chance of survival. His mother alleged that the “targeted assassination” was a direct result of political vendetta following the election results in Bhabanipur and Nandigram. She claimed her son was singled out because of the special responsibilities he held during the fiercely contested polls in those specific constituencies, where high-profile leaders faced off in a bitter struggle for power.
The grieving mother expressed that her pain was magnified by the nature of the crime, asserting that an accidental death would have been easier to bear than a cold-blooded murder. She pointedly linked the attack to the defeat of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against Suvendu Adhikari in Bhabanipur, suggesting that her son’s strategic involvement in the campaign made him a mark for retaliatory violence. These allegations add further fuel to the ongoing war of words between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress regarding the safety of political workers in the province.
While police continue to investigate the sequence of events and scan CCTV footage for clues, the community remains on edge. The incident has triggered widespread protests and fresh accusations of state-sponsored terror from the saffron camp. As the investigation progresses, the focus remains on the motives behind the ambush and the potential links to the broader post-poll unrest that has historically plagued the region. For a mother in mourning, however, the priority remains a life-long legal consequence for those who pulled the trigger and disrupted her family’s peace.
