Kolkata, Jul 7 (IANS): The Baruipur district police probing the murder of three local-level Trinamool Congress leaders at Canning in South 24 Parganas district on Thursday morning are looking into the possibility of the involvement of the local drugs racket in the crime.

The trigger point of this suspicion involving the local drugs trade is an incident that took place in the same area around 18 months back, when a local drug peddler, Rafiqul Alam, tried to kill a Trinamool activist named Badal.

Police sources said that Badal was the right-hand man of local Trinamool panchayat member Swapan Majhi, who was murdered on Thursday morning.

"Rafiqul was in jail before on charges of drug peddling. He thought Badal was the mastermind behind sending him to jail, and hence after his release he tried to kill Badal. But Rafiqul failed in his attempt because of the timely intervention of Swapan Majhi and his associates.

"According to eyewitnesses, Rafiqul even threatened Majhi of dire consequences. So naturally we are probing this old rivalry angle also," said a district police official who did not wish to be named.

However, the possibilities of infighting in Trinamool Congress sneaks into even in this angle. Some local people have informed the police that before being expelled from the party because of his drug links, Rafiqul was a close associate of Canning (East) MLA Saokat Molla, who is under CBI lens for his alleged role in the coal smuggling case.

On the contrary, the three killed on Thursday -- Majhi, Bhutnath Pramanik and Jhantu Halder -- were known to be close to Paresh Ram Das, the Trinamool MLA from Canning (West).

Meanwhile, a political spur has started in Bengal over these killings with the opposition parties saying that even the lives of the ruling party members and leaders are not safe any more.