Arrested TMC councillor Mohd Iqbal sent to Kolkata

Gaya (Bihar): Arrested Trinamool Congress councillor Mohammed Iqbal was produced on Friday before a railway magistrate here who allowed him to be taken to taken to Kolkata where he is wanted for the gunning down of a Special Branch sub-inspector.

A team of Kolkata police produced Iqbal before the Gaya Rail Magistrate and prayed for a production warrant which was accepted. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Rail, Arun Kumar Tiwari said that Iqbal, who was arrested from a PCO booth in Dehri-on-Sone near Gaya yesterday, will be taken to Kolkata tonight. An unarmed sub-inspector Tapas Choudhury was shot dead during violence between Congress and Trinamool supporters before Hari Mohan Ghosh College in Garden Reach in Kolkata when nomination forms for student union elections were being distributed on February 12. Causing discomfort to the Mamata Banerjee government, West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan on February 14 when asked to comment on state Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim`s alleged bid to shield the councillor had said "He has no business to do that." On the same day the Commissioner of Kolkata Police R K Pachnanda was removed and the case handed over to the CID from the Kolkata Police Detective Department. Earlier, 12 persons along with Sheikh Subhaan who had allegedly fired at the police officer, had been arrested. PTI