Kolkata, Mar 2: Hours after his release from jail, former Trinamool Congress legislator Arabul Islam Friday accused sections of West Bengal Police of acting as CPI-M "stooges" to frame him.
"A section of police is acting like a stooge of the CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist). Police and the CPI-M have joined hands against me," Islam said after he was welcomed by party supporters with garlands and flowers on his release from the Alipore Central Correctional Home.
He was arrested Jan 17 on charges of attempted murder and arson for assaulting CPI-M lawmaker Abdur Rezzak Mollah Jan 6 and other members of the Marxist party two days later.
Claiming that he was a victim of a conspiracy, Islam said: "It was the CPI-M which attacked me. There was a conspiracy to murder me. But I was the one who had to rot in jail for 44 days".
"A section of the administration is acting at the behest of the CPI-M to undermine my leader (chief minister and party chief) Mamata Banerjee," he said.
A city court Thursday granted him bail after refusing the relief on four occasions earlier. Following the court order, Islam was released Friday.
"Why only 44 days... I can stay in jails for four years for the cause of my party," said Islam.
Mollah was severely beaten up allegedly by Trinamool workers led by Islam Jan 6 when he went to Bamanghata area in South 24 Parganas district, where a CPI-M office had been damaged.
The disturbances stretched to Jan 8 when a number of political activists were injured in firing and clashes between the Trinamool and CPI-M.
Governor M.K. Narayanan had then said: "This is not a good political culture. I think some sort of goondaism is going on here."
