Won't submit licensed firearm to police, unless ordered by court: Former BJP MP

Kolkata(The Uttam Hindu):  Arjun Singh, former BJP Lok Sabha MP from Barrackpore constituency in West Bengal, has clearly said that he will not honour the notice from the local police to submit his licensed firearm to the police, unless he gets a specific order from the court in the matter. He said that he had received a notice from the cops to appear at the local police station with his licensed firearm and submit the same there. “However, I will neither go to the police station nor submit my licensed firearm there. I will do that only if I am asked by the court to do so. Trinamool Congress is trying to kill me using police,” Singh told media persons on Saturday.

Earlier this week, a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court granted interim protection to Singh from any coercive police action, including arrest, in connection with a shootout between two groups of miscreants on March 26. In the shootout near his residence on March 26, one Trinamool Congress worker was injured after being hit by a bullet. The local Trinamool Congress leadership alleged that Saddam was hit by a bullet that Singh himself fired from his pistol. The police issued notices to Singh to appear at the police station for interrogation, but the latter ignored those notices.

Thereafter, an arrest warrant was issued against him, following which he approached the Calcutta High Court for relief. The matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, and at the end of the hearing, Justice Sengupta granted him an interim relief from any coercive action. Since the beginning, Singh has been denying the allegations against him. He claimed that as he went with his men to sort out a tension between two groups of workers of a local Meghna Jute Mill, suddenly, the ruling party supporters led by Namit Singh reached there and started quarrelling with him.

BJP’s former national vice president and former Lok Sabha member Dilip Ghosh too had claimed that a definite conspiracy was going on to assassinate Singh. “We will not spare the state government if anything happens to him,” Ghosh said.