Sandeshkhali Tense Again As Women Hit Streets Seeking TMC Leader Sheikh Shahjahan's Arrest

New Delhi: Sandeshkhali witnessed a fresh wave of unrest as women took to the streets with sticks and brooms, seeking the capture of Sheikh Shahjahan and his cronies, who are wanted for sexual harassment and violence. The police imposed strict curfew orders under Section 144 in two village panchayats in Sandeshkhali, where the situation was most volatile since Friday morning.

Supratim Sarkar, the Additional Director of Police (South Bengal), arrived at the troubled spot with a large force of police. He urged the women protesters to approach the district administration and file their complaints, rather than demonstrating on the roads. The senior officer also tried to persuade the protesters by saying that such protests would only hamper the resolution of their problems.

The trouble in Sandeshkhali had been brewing since Thursday evening, when the locals set fire to a warehouse inside a fish farm owned by Sheikh Sirajuddin, the younger brother of Sheikh Shahjahan, the alleged mastermind of the assault on the ED and CAPF officials on January 5 morning.

Apart from the arrest of the absconding Trinamool Congress leader, the women protesters, on Friday, also demanded the restoration of farmland that had been illegally and forcibly taken over by Shahjahan and his associates and turned into fish farms by pumping in salt water.

In the meantime, a BJP delegation led by the party’s Lok Sabha member Locket Chatterjee and the party’s legislator Agnimitra Paul was intercepted by the police while they were heading to Sandeshkhali. After being stopped at the Bhojerhat area, Chatterjee and Paul got into a heated argument with the police officials. There was a minor tussle between the BJP supporters and the cops.

Chatterjee was later detained and taken to the Kolkata Police headquarters at Lalbazar in Central Kolkata.