Rs 25 lakh and a warning: Bengal's stampede response runs into a fight over bookstalls and 'fake' posts

Kolkata: Nineteen people were killed and 25 injured in a stampede at a Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata on Saturday. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited the families of the victims and handed them compensation cheques of Rs 25 lakh each.
Adhikari met families in Purba Bardhaman, Hooghly, Nadia and Howrah districts. 'So many lives were lost because of a few mistakes. It is extremely painful,' he said.
He alleged that 'fake narratives' about the incident were being posted from Bangladesh. He said he had ordered that cases under non-bailable sections be registered against 135 people in the state who had shared or endorsed such content. The Special Task Force arrested a man from Cooch Behar district.
Adhikari said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) had been constituted to probe the stampede, and that the chief secretary had written to the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court requesting the nomination of a sitting judge to head the investigation.
Separately, the CPI(M) and SUCI have alleged that Left parties' bookstalls were vandalised at several places during the festival. The CPI(M) moved the Calcutta High Court over attempts to remove its stall in Jadavpur; the case was dismissed. CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty claimed around 100 bookstalls were attacked across the state.
Adhikari also told Left parties to sell books at their offices rather than outside Durga Puja pandals, saying they had 4,000 to 5,000 offices where they could do so. The CPI(M) has moved the Calcutta High Court alleging that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and police tried to remove a temporary bookstall in Jadavpur.