E-Paper
TMC leader, 14 aides arrested for youth’s murder, clash in Birbhum
Kajal Shah, a TMC leader, and 14 of his associates were arrested in Birbhum district for allegedly murdering Faizul Sheikh, a local youth, during a clash over control of a sand quarry
Kolkata: Kajal Shah, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, and 14 of his associates were arrested in West Bengal’s Birbhum district on Sunday for allegedly murdering Faizul Sheikh, a local youth, during a clash over control of a sand quarry, police said.
The clash took place on Saturday night and continued till Sunday morning at Bansjhor village near Birbhum’s Siuri town, a district police officer said on condition of anonymity. “We have arrested 15 people, including Shah, and seized a number of crude bombs that were used in the clash,” he added.
Cabinet minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, who is touring Birbhum to oversee the TMC’s preparedness before the panchayat elections, said police were asked to take stern action. “I could hear the explosions even from the circuit house,” Hakim, who spent the night at Siuri, told local reporters.
Involvement of a section of Birbhum’s TMC leaders and workers in sand and stone businesses, most of which are allegedly illegal, came under scanner in March this year when panchayat leader Bhadu Sheikh’s murder triggered the massacre of 10 people, including nine women, at Bogtui village in the Rampurhat area.
It was alleged that Sheikh was murdered by his rivals with whom he refused to share the profits from illegal sand business and the money he allegedly extorted from sand and stone traders.
The Calcutta high court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe Sheikh’s murder as well as the massacre that immediately followed on the night of March 21.
The CBI on Wednesday arrested Faizul Sheikh alias Palash, one of the prime suspects in Sheikh’s murder. Five of the 10 accused in the murder case were arrested earlier.
The CBI arrested around 20 people for the massacre.
Anarul Hossain, the former Rampurhat community block-1 unit president of the TMC, not only ordered the massacre but also supervised it while keeping police away, the CBI said in its charge sheet filed in June.
