Top leaders of the BJP in Tamil Nadu have demanded an NIA (National Investigation Agency) probe into the petrol bomb incident at Chennai’s BJP headquarters on Thursday, February 10. Addressing the press, state BJP chief K Annamalai said that he wanted all the “fundamentalists and anti-national forces behind this attack to be arrested and brought to justice”.
The police were quick to identify one accused involved in the attack carried out at 1:30 am in front of Kamalalayam located in downtown T Nagar on Thursday. The accused is a 38-year-old history sheeter named Vinod. In its press note, police stated that Vinod has a history of hurling petrol bombs. He has done it twice before and has been booked on both occasions — the first time at a police station and the next time in front of a TASMAC outlet, and has also been booked for other criminal cases.
This time, the 38-year-old hurled the bomb supposedly to register his protest against the BJP’s stance on banning the NEET (National Eligibility Entrance Test) — the entrance exam for medical and dental undergraduate courses.
However, Annamalai believes that the attack is unlikely to be one person’s doing. “It is very hard to believe that an individual - who has a history of criminal cases including murder - hurled a petrol bomb to protest against the BJP educational policy or stance in the NEET issue, as it is likely that this person has nothing to do with the subject of education,” Annamalai told the press.
Further, Annamalai said that the reasons and supposed facts laid out by the police following the preliminary probe do not seem to corroborate.
“The police has called this accused man a ‘drunkard’, and at the same time, on a previous occasion, the accused hurled a bomb at TASMAC (outlet) to force liquor shops to shut down. This doesn’t add up,” he said, adding that only the NIA can bring out the complete conspirators and criminal elements in the case.
Annamalai also said that the BJP national leaders have taken up the issue seriously.
On Tuesday, all political parties barring the BJP in the Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously re-adopted the draft of the bill banning NEET, after Governor RN Ravi returned the draft claiming that the new Bill was “anti-poor” and worked against the interests of the economically and socially weaker students.