Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma believes that Sandeshkhali would be the "downfall" of his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress. The state BJP leaders have already been accusing the police and the administration of working hand in glove with the perpetrators as they exploited women and usurped their lands.
West Bengal's Sandeshkhali has been on the boil for weeks over allegations of sexual atrocities on women and land grabbing by local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders.
National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Rekha Sharma on Monday said 18 complaints had been received from women in Sandeshkhali, of which two are complaints of rape. On February 12, Union Minister Smriti Irani alleged that "Hindu" women from lower castes had been "raped" regularly by TMC workers. The state police ruled out a communal angle in the violence.
What is happening in Sandeshkhali?
• For almost a month, Sandeshkhali, a village in West Bengal, has been witnessing a political storm amid allegations of sexual harassment by numerous women against a local Trinamool Congress workers.
• After the Enforcement Directorate raided TMC's Shahjahan Sheikh house in Sandeshkhali, local women came out in large numbers and alleged that Shajahan and his men forcibly grabbed their land for prawn cultivation, torturing and sexually harassing them for several years.
• Women in Sandeshkhali have been staging protests for the past several week in response to purported atrocities. This prompted the BJP to send a mission to look into the matter. When a team of BJP leaders went to the area, they were reportedly stopped by the Banerjee government, triggering further protests and clashes.
• "The condition of Bengal is very bad, the journalists there who are trying to show the reality are also being arrested. The incident that happened in Sandeshkhali, one cannot even imagine about it," Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
• Leader of Opposition in West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday described as "horrific" and "emblematic of anarchy" the situation in Sandeshkhali after visiting the trouble-torn area following the intervention of the Calcutta High Court.
• Fugitive TMC strongman Sheikh Shahjahan is singularly responsible for unrest in Sandeshkhali, and law and order there "cannot be restored" so long as he is on the run, Calcutta high court chief justice TS Sivagnanam said on Tuesday, adding that Mamata Banerjee government "cannot be supporting him". "One person is holding entire population to ransom and defying law… Let him appear before court and submit that allegations (levelled by ED) are baseless," CJ said.
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