CPM district secretary Samik Lahiri said that Debu and Usha Das had been killed because Debu, polling agent at Booth 213 in Budhakhali, had rebuffed the Trinamul Congress's warnings to stay away. A police officer said Debu's hut was "in a corner of the village", so the neighbours could not reach it immediately. Villagers told the police that by the time the neighbours had arrived, more than half the hut had burnt down. CPM district leader Lahiri wrote to state election commissioner A.K. He blamed "Trinamul's project of capturing cent per cent of elected panchayat bodies" for the "blood-curdling and gruesome incident".

Source: The Telegraph May 14, 2018 21:45 UTC