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Sandeshkhali: Bengal govt in crisis management mode; ministers meet residents
TMC minister Sujit Bose said that they were in Sandeshkhali to listen to the grievances of people and to meet the party’s local leaders
Three Trinamool Congress (TMC) ministers on Sunday met the people of Sandeshkhali in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, which has been on the boil since February 7, to address mass grievances after allegations ranging from extortion to sexual assault were raised against three local party leaders.
In a parallel development, government officials set up camps to receive complaints of grabbing and illegal use of land. Many farmers have alleged that their lands were forcefully grabbed and turned into saltwater fisheries over the last decade, making the soil unfit for conventional farming.
After meeting aggrieved people who assembled at Kalinagar village, fire services minister Sujit Bose, irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick and forest minister Birbaha Hansda said the TMC will raise money and compensate people who have suffered losses.
Bose said allegations were made by residents of some specific areas of Sandeshkhali, which is also an assembly constituency comprising 16 gram panchayat areas. The local TMC MLA, Sukumar Mahata, who has been claiming that the recent mass protests were engineered by opposition parties, accompanied the ministers.
“We are here to listen to the grievances and meet our local leaders. The accused persons have already been arrested,” Bose said.
Since police have clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which bans assembly of four or more persons at one place, at 19 locations in Sandeshkhali, the ministers had to meet the villagers at Kalinagar, which is located outside these areas.
Arrested on Saturday night, Shiba Prasad Hazra, president of the TMC unit at Sandeshkhali-2 community block, the worst affected zone, was remanded in police custody till February 26 by the Barasat court on Sunday.
“Hazra has been charged with gangrape, attempt to murder and molestation,” Arun Pal, the public prosecutor, told the media.
A crowd assembled outside the court premises, demanding arrest of Sheikh Shahjahan, TMC’s Sandeshkhali unit president, who is wanted for the January 5 attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials during a raid at his home in connection with the alleged ₹2,000-crore public distribution system (PDS) scam.
Shahjahan, who was defended by chief minister Mamata Banerjee a few days ago, remained untraceable till Sunday night.
Local women - most of whom belong to scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) communities - have levelled allegations of exploitation and torture at Hazra and Uttam Sardar, who are also panchayat zilla parishad members. Both are known to be close aides of Shahjahan.
Police arrested Sardar on February 10 shortly after TMC suspended him for six years. Bikash Sinha, a local BJP leader, and Nirapada Sardar, the CPI(M)’s former Sandeshkhali legislator, were also arrested. All three have been charged with inciting violence.
Addressing the crowd at a government event in Birbhum district on Sunday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said: “Not a single person had lodged a complaint. So, I told the police to file a suo motu case. The entire incident was engineered. First, the ED was sent to Sandeshkhali and then the BJP entered the area. If anyone complains that money was taken from him, then we will return it. But nobody has made such an allegation.”
Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said: “The arrest of Shibu Hazra proves that rape and molestation took place. And if the TMC is talking of returning money then it is evident that extortion and land grabbing took place at random.”
Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose visited Sandeshkhali on February 12 and flew to Delhi where he met central government officials.
On Friday, a fact-finding delegation sent from Delhi by BJP president J P Nadda and a Congress team led by state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were stopped by police from entering Sandeshkhali-2 community block because of the prohibitory orders.
Chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), Rekha Sharma, is scheduled to visit Sandeshkhali on Monday.
