(MENAFN- IANS) Kolkata, July 11 (IANS) A local Trinamool Congress leader was shot and hacked to death on a road at Bhangar in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district.

The incident happened late Thursday night. The deceased leader was identified as Rezzak Khan, who is known in the locality as a close associate of Trinamool Congress legislator Saokat Molla from the Canning (East) Assembly constituency.

Eyewitnesses said that unknown miscreants first shot Khan from close range while he was returning home. Thereafter, according to eyewitnesses, he was attacked with sharp weapons multiple times.

After the assassins escaped from the scene, the locals shifted him to a local hospital. However, the doctors there declared him brought dead.

In the recent past, the Bhangar region, which had always been notorious for bloody political violence and political assassinations, was brought under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Police for better law and order management.

However, that initiative hardly brought changes in the ground realities at Bhangar, and reports of political clashes at frequent intervals continue surfacing.

The legislator from Bhangar, Nawsad Siddique, is the sole All India Secular Front (AISF) representative in the West Bengal Assembly.

The two main rivals in the political clashes over area dominance in Bhangar since the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections had been the Trinamool Congress and AISF.

A political slugfest has already started over the murder of Rezzak Khan. Saokat Mollah claimed that Nawsad Siddique was the mastermind behind the murder since Khan's organisational abilities and popularity in the locality had been a factor of inconvenience for AISF for a long time.

Siddique, in his counterclaim, said the murder was a result of internal factionalism in Trinamool Congress at Bhangar, and his party had no role to play in the murder.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma, who visited the spot, said that an investigation into the matter had started, and no further details on the matter could be revealed at this moment.

The body of the deceased Trinamool Congress leader had been sent for post-mortem purposes, the commissioner confirmed.

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