At least 15 people, including five women and three children, were injured following a shootout in Nakashipara in West Bengal’s Nadia district, said officials on Tuesday.

The incident happened late Monday night. The injured persons, currently under treatment at a local hospital, reportedly belonged to two families with political affiliations to the Congress. The needle of suspicion has been pointed towards Trinamool Congress, which the local leadership of the state’s ruling party has vehemently denied.

Local police sources said that the condition of five of the 15 injured was extremely critical. The shootout, as claimed by the local people, was continuation of the political enmity which surfaced in the region over the recently concluded polls for the three- tier panchayat system.

The local Additional Superintendent of Police, Krishanu Roy said that there had been a clash between two groups of people in the area. “A police contingent has been deputed there. The matter is under investigation,” he said.

The Congress’s district president of Nadia Asim Saha alleged that those whose houses were attacked were associated with Trinamool Congress till the recent past until they shifted to the Congress before the recently concluded panchayat polls.

“This shifting created a grudge among the ruling party leadership, the fallout of which was the shootout on late Monday night. The goons resorted to indiscriminate firing in which 15 persons, including women and children were injured. The police acted like mute spectators and they reached the spot much after the shootout phase was over and the miscreants had escaped from the place,” Saha said.

On the other hand, the Nadia district chairman of Trinamool Congress Nashiruddin Ahmed denied the involvement of his party supporters behind the incident. “It was the fallout of rivalry between two groups on a local issue. We are in no way involved in the matter,” he claimed.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)