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Shahjahan in CBI custody after HC asks Bengal to comply with order
Finally, at 6:30pm, the 45-year-old leader was handed over to CBI, which has filed three first information reports against unknown people
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday took custody of Trinamool Congress strongman Sheikh Shahjahan from the West Bengal Police after a dramatic day where the Calcutta high court reiterated its order to transfer the controversial leader to the federal agency.
The high court had asked the state police to hand over Shahjahan, who is battling charges of extortion, embezzlement, land grab, and sexual violence, to CBI on Tuesday. But the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) refused after a brief standoff, arguing that the state government had moved the Supreme Court against the order.
But on Wednesday, the top court refused to urgently hear the plea.
Hours later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved a contempt petition before a division bench presided by justice Harish Tandon against the state government, saying that it did not implement the March 5 orders of the division bench presided by chief justice TS Sivagnanam.
“We do not find any fetter or impediment on our part in not directing the implementation of the said order in a pending contempt application despite the fact that a Special Leave Petition is pending before the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the fact remains there is no interim order of stay of the operation of the said order passed as of this time,” said the bench, directing the state police to hand over Shahjahan to CBI by 4.15pm on Wednesday.
The court will hear the contempt petition after three weeks. It asked the alleged contemnors to file affidavits within two weeks. Finally, at 6:30pm, the 45-year-old leader was handed over to CBI, which has filed three first information reports against unknown people.
“Shahjahan, who was in custody of the Criminal Investigation Department of the state police, was handed over to us on the orders of the Calcutta high court. Further investigation is going on,” said a senior CBI official, requesting anonymity.
The agency first took Shahjahan to the ESI hospital for a medical checkup and then to the CBI office at Nizam Palace where he is likely to be questioned.
The West Bengal government mentioned the matter in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking an urgent hearing. However, the matter was not listed for hearing even on Thursday.
The developments came on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally at Barasat in North 24 Parganas and met five of the women victims from Sandeshkhali.
The island village of Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district has been in the eye of the storm since January 5, when ED officers arrived to search the home of Shahjahan, a close aide of former minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, who was arrested in October last year in connection with an alleged ration distribution scam. The ED team came under attack from an angry mob, leaving three officers injured. But, on February 7, other violent protests began erupting in Sandeshkhali and other nearby villages, with groups of residents led mostly by local women, alleging sexual harassment at the hands of local TMC leaders including Shahjahan, his brother Sirajuddin, and other associates Shibaprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar. Other villages have claimed that Shahjahan and his associates also indulged in landgrab.
Shahjahan, a former TMC zila parishad leader, was arrested by the state police on the orders of the high court on February 29. CID later took over the investigation.
The state government has repeatedly accused the Opposition of politicising the event. But the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party wants to use Sandeshkhali as a referendum on the TMC government’s grip on law and order in the state. A number of national panels — including the National Commission of Women, the National Commission of Scheduled Castes and the National Commission of Scheduled Tribes — have visited the area and later said that they documented serious allegations against Sheikh and his associates. On Tuesday, the Calcutta high court transferred the investigation into the attack on ED officials to CBI and asked the state police to hand over the suspended TMC leader to the federal agency by 4:30 pm on Tuesday.
The court also lambasted the state police for trying to “shield” the strongman. “The state police had played a hide-and-seek methodology in all probabilities to shield the accused who undoubtedly is a highly politically influential person who has demonstrably shown that he is and would be in a position to influence the investigation if allowed to rest with the state police,” it held.
“TMC has committed a grave sin by torturing mothers and sisters. Anybody’s head will hang in shame after seeing what happened in Sandeshkhali. But the TMC is not bothered about your pain. The TMC-government is using its full strength to shield the culprits. But the state government first got a shock from the high court and then the Supreme Court,” Modi said at the rally.
“The state police have some rights when it comes to questioning an accused and told the court about that. What’s wrong in that? The high court sometime uses its discretion saying that it is not relying on the state police and relies on central agencies. Several questions are surfacing on this,” TMC leader Jay Prakash Majumdar told the media.
