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Fact-finding delegation detained in West Bengal
Unofficial fact-finding team blocked from Sandeshkhali; Trinamool Congress plans rally amid escalating political war over alleged criminal activities.
An unofficial fact-finding team was halted by police from reaching Sandeshkhali in Bengal, the Trinamool Congress announced a mega rally days after the Prime Minister is expected to arrive in the state, and the party lashed out at the judiciary as the political war over the besieged Southern Bengal block escalated on Sunday.
Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched a scathing attack on the judiciary, accusing the judges of shielding Sheikh Shahjahan, who belongs to his party and has been at the heart of allegations that he ran a criminal enterprise in Sandeshkhali, where he grabbed people’s lands, forced them to work at exploitative wages and had his acquaintances assault — including rape — people who spoke up.
“The judiciary is guarding Sheikh Shahjahan — and I put this on record — so that Sandeshkhali remains on the boil, remains in the headlines. The TMC government will not spare anyone if the allegations are genuine but the Calcutta high court has tied the hands of the police,” Banerjee, the nephew of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, said on Sunday evening.
Sandeshkhali, a block with several villages nestled between lakes and marshes of the lower Ganga wetlands, has been rocked by violent protests since February 7, when villagers descended upon poultry farm linked to Shahjahan’s aide and set it alight.
The issue has since emerged at the heart of a political war, led by the opposition BJP which has accused Trinamool of protecting its cadre.
The matter could remain in the spotlight with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to visit the state on March 6 to campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, although the venue of his programme has not yet been disclosed.
Banerjee named several judges to allege what he said was a conspiracy to benefit the BJP. His contention was that the court stayed action by state police on Shahjahan, who was involved in a separate controversy with federal investigation agency Enforcement Directorate.
Shahjahan’s aides attacked an ED team on January 5, after which he went underground. “How can the police arrest anyone with the stay orders in force? Why are BJP leaders not going to Sandeshkhali together? Why are they planning separate visits? They have been asked to keep the issue alive till the Prime Minister is here,” Banerjee said, as he hit out both at high court judges and the BJP.
Reacting to Banerjee’s comments, Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said: “Humiliating the judiciary has become the essence of TMC’s politics. Let us see when the Bengal governor decides to take action. The total Constitutional machinery in Bengal has collapsed.”
On the ground in Sandeshkhali, the situation remained on the edge. Partha Bhowmick, state irrigation minister, and Sujit Bose, the state fire and emergency services minister, visited some of the areas where protests took place but the agitation continued in at least three villages of the Sandeshkhali-2 community block.
On Sunday, the party sacked Ajit Maiti, a local TMC leader who was made secretary of the anchal (zonal) at Sandeskhali on Saturday, after villagers accused him of helping Shahjahan grab farmlands over the last few years.
Maiti had locked himself inside a neighbour’s home to escape angry villagers before police took him into custody on Sunday. Maiti initially told the media he was innocent but changed his statements every hour till police whisked him away.
“I was in BJP. TMC workers forced me to join the ruling party after 2019,” he said before being taken away.
Also on Sunday an “independent fact-finding committee” led by former chief justice of Patna high court L Narasimha Reddy was stopped by police from proceeding to Sandeshkhali.
The police cited Section 144 CrPC, which prohibits gathering of multiple people, as they stopped the team’s convoy at the Bhojerhat area, around 52km from the riverine area, on Basanti Highway.
Reddy, accompanied by former IPS officer Raj Pal Singh, former National Commission for Women member Charu Wali Khanna, advocates OP Vyas and Bhavna Bajaj, and senior journalist Sanjeev Nayak, sat on the wayside, adamant on wanting to proceed before they were detained by police and taken in a vehicle, and later released.
“This is completely illegal. We have told the police personnel as law-abiding citizens we will not break rules. No curfew has been imposed in Sandeshkhali. So we can go in two groups. At least two of our women members should be allowed to visit the females who had bore the brunt of atrocities of musclemen enjoying political patronage and impunity from police action in all these days till the media unravelled the shocking truth,” Reddy said.
Claiming they were given a copy of the Section 144 order as they set off for the journey, he said “The administration cannot stop civil society members of the country to interact with victims of human rights violation. What they (administration) are scared to hide.”
