[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sourav death threat has cops in tizzy
By Sujit Bhar
There is a possibility that this could be a hoax. That does not reduce the seriousness of the death threat issued to former India captain and Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president Sourav Ganguly on January 7 (Saturday).
Sourav is scheduled to travel to the district of Midnapore to attend a felicitation ceremony as chief guest at an inter-college cricket meet at the Vidyasagar University there on January 19.
Sourav told reporters after the CAB’s working committee meeting in Kolkata on January 9 (Monday): “Yes I’ve received the letter on January 7 and I’ve informed this to the police and the organisers. Let’s see, nothing has been decided yet but it will be a live show programme and you all will come to know if I go there.”
The letter, signed by one Z Alam, was couriered to Sourav’s mother Nirupa, reports say. According to a source quoted in the media the letter said: ”Your son is hereby warned not to attend the programme. If he dares to come here, you will not see him again.”
While he has not yet decided if he should go to the felicitation, the situation remains fluid. Kolkata’s joint commissioner of police (crime) has been quoted as saying that he has “got nothing so far” on the issue.
Sources have been quoted as saying that this probably is a local rivalry issue to show the organisers in poor light and should not be taken too seriously. There is, however, another school of thought that says that Maoists may be behind this. Certain areas of Midnapore district are Maoist-infested and Sourav’s proximity to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress administration in the state could have drawn their ire. That could be a serious issue.
Maoists have been the bane of consecutive administrations in the state. Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s (of the CPI-M) motorcade was ambushed in the Salboni area of West Midnapore in November 2008. Also in the motorcade were the then Union ministers Jitin Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan.
It was an IED blast that snapped a high tension electric wire. An accompanying police car was riddled with shrapnel and pellets, injuring six policemen. The chief minister escaped without injury.
When Mamata came to power she tried her hand at making a deal with the Maoists, but failed. This irked her so much that Maoist outfits have all become anathema to her. This situation has not eased.
However, this is not the first time that Sourav has received threats.
In late-September and early October of 2008 he had received two letters (with a gap of a month) threatening to kidnap his daughter Sana, who was then seven years old, if a ransom of Rs 2 crore wasn’t paid.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had said then that two letters were received by the family, one hand-delivered (dropped into the letterbox, because it bore no postal mark) the other sent via Speed Post from a post office near the main business district of the city, Esplanade. The letters were addressed to Sourav’s wife Dona.
The first letter did not worry the family—they were abroad at the time—but the second letter was taken seriously. CID sources had said that the letters could have come from the banned Indian Mujahideen group, but nothing much had come off it and the incident was forgotten.
Image courtesy: BCCI[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]