New Delhi, 3 September

Trinamool Congress MPs Mahua Moitra and Saugata Roy on Thursday complained of "utter lawlessness" in West Bengal, after a group of masked men allegedly ransacked the office of the party's national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, at Kolkata's Camac Street earlier in the day.

Moitra and Roy, the party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, addressed a press conference here, alleging that around 25 men entered the office at about 4:30 am, overpowered the security guards and went on a prolonged rampage across the sixth and seventh floors.

The TMC has alleged that the attackers broke open the entrance, smashed glass panes and damaged computers, printers, scanners and other equipment. It has also alleged that television screens, air purifiers and laptops were taken away from the premises and documents and other material scattered across the office.

Moitra said the security guards were threatened and their mobile phones taken away, while the attackers cut off the CCTV cameras before proceeding with the vandalism.

"The state of lawlessness in Bengal today is such that it seems we are living in a banana republic where a coup has happened," she said, describing the incident as an attack on the TMC's organisational premises in the heart of Kolkata.

The Krishnanagar MP said the TMC repeatedly contacted police from around 4:30 am, but claimed that police personnel reached the premises only around 6:30-7 am, after party lawyers went to the police station.

She said six people have been apprehended in connection with the incident, but questioned whether those detained are the same people who had entered the office.

Moitra also alleged that police personnel, who she said had not responded for hours, were subsequently preventing party members from entering the affected floors to assess the damage.

The TMC has alleged that BJP workers were behind the attack. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has denied the charge and described the incident as staged.

The incident comes amid heightened tension around Banerjee's Camac Street office following a confrontation last week between TMC leaders and workers and Kolkata Police personnel during an operation to remove an allegedly-unauthorised billboard from the rooftop of the building.

Three FIRs were registered in connection with that confrontation, with Banerjee and TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien among those named in those. Banerjee appeared before the Kolkata Police on Tuesday, while O'Brien was questioned by police for hours on Wednesday.

Moitra said the latest incident has to be viewed against this backdrop and raised questions over the conduct of police.

She said the TMC has written to President Droupadi Murmu and West Bengal Governor R N Ravi, seeking urgent appointments with a party delegation to apprise them of the incident and the situation in the state.