West Bengal: 'Aatank macha rakha hai,' fact-finding team slams police after being stopped from visiting Sandeshkhali

The Police on Sunday stopped a fact-finding team from visiting trouble-torn Sandeshkhali in West Bengal. The team was heading towards Sandeshkhali but was stopped at Bhojerhat. OP Vyas, a member of the team, said the police had stopped them "illegally which is against our rights". He said the team would complain about it to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Governor, the Union Home Minister, and even the Prime Minister.

"During Ram Navami, they did the same and stopped us because they were hiding something. I don't understand what kind of picture this state government wants to portray before the world. Constitutional machinery is collapsed in the state. Unfortunately, Police are executing illegal orders and taking the law in hands. We want to meet victims of Sandeshkhali," he said.

Charu Wali Khanna, another member of the team, said: "We were visiting Sandeshkhali, but they have stopped us. Police have purposely stopped us and are creating problems for the common people. Police are not letting us meet the victims of Sandeshkhali."

Khanna said the police should answer why they were trying to detain the team. "The way atrocities against women have been done, I wonder what the Police would have done with them? Police are not citing any reason to stop us, they are just doing what they have been asked to do."

In Sandeshkhali, villagers have been protesting against alleged land grab and sexual assault on women by TMC leader Shahjahan Sheikh and his supporters.

A three-member National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) team recently visited Sandeshkhali, where they received more than 50 complaints of sexual harassment of tribal women and land grabs by Shahjahan and his associates.

The team found that Sheikh Shahjahan and his associates would forcibly take MNREGA wages from poor tribal families and torture them for voting against the party.

Sandeshkhali area in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district -- situated on the borders of the Sunderbans, about 100 kilometres from Kolkata -- has been on the boil for more than a month with protests against TMC leader Shahjahan, who is absconding.

"The NCST team learned that Shahjahan would instruct poor tribal people to give him their MNREGA earnings. And in case they had already exhausted it, he would ask them to borrow money from lenders and give it to him," Nayak said.

The complaints, the majority of whom are Hindus, told the probe team that the accused and his associates tortured people who voted for other parties in elections, the NCST vice-chairperson said.

(With inputs from PTI)