Shahjahan Sheikh brain behind ED attack: CBI chargesheet

Shubhadeep Choudhury & Animesh Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 28

Giving fresh ammunition to anti-Trinamool parties to target it on the Sandeshkhali issue ahead of the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections, party’s West Bengal strongman Shahjahan Sheikh has been named by the CBI as the main conspirator in a case related to an alleged attack on an Enforcement Directorate team in January.

Tasked with the probe by the Calcutta High Court, the CBI filed a chargesheet in the case in a Basirhat court on May 27. Shahjahan and his brother Sekh Alomgir are among the seven accused named in the chargesheet. The ED team was attacked when it had gone to conduct searches at Shahjahan’s residential and official premises in a money laundering case related to alleged irregularities in the procurement, processing, milling and fortification and distribution of ration through a PDS scheme.

While the attack took place on January 5, an agitation by local women against Shahjahan erupted later that month, prompting the BJP to step in and aggressively attack the Trinamool government, accusing it of shielding the strongman.

Shahjahan, Trinamool’s block president in Sandeshkhali, was expelled from the party after the protesting women accused him and his associates of land grab and sexual violence. The issue grabbed headlines, making it difficult for the TMC leadership to ignore the grievances of the locals. The strongman was on the run for almost three weeks after the ED attack incident and was arrested only after the High Court’s intervention.

Nine West Bengal constituencies, including Basirhat— Sandeshkhali Assembly seat is its part—are slated to go to the polls in the last phase on June 1. In Sandeshkhali, the news of the CBI chargesheet holding Shahjahan guilty is learnt to have been greeted with jubilation. The BJP has given the Basirhat ticket to Rekha Patra, one of the women faces who led the Sandeshkhali agitation. The saffron party, however, is hopeful the issue would dent the TMC much beyond Basirhat.