What is Going On at Sandeshkhali?
Subinoy Moulik
THE recent happenings in Sandeshkhali and the swell of public discontent clearly indicate that the people are no longer willing to tolerate such rapacious and ruinous misrule enforced by Trinamool Congress in rural Bengal. Sandeshkhali (North 24 Parganas) in the Sundarbans region of the state had first hit the headlines on January 4 when ED officials and central forces came under attack from a mob while they were on their way to raid TMC block president and a zilla parishad member in North 24 Parganas district, Sheikh Shahjahan’s residence at Akunjipara in connection with the alleged ration scam. Three ED officers and several journalists, who were tailing the raiding team, were injured in the attack. According to media reports, Shahjahan Sheikh was present at his house during the ED raid, but after the attack on the team, he remains ‘officially’ on the run. Sheikh, popularly known as "Bhai'', is considered close to state minister Jyotipriya Mullick, who was arrested in the alleged ration scam last year and is still behind the bars. In the last decade he rose from the position of a petty businessman to become the uncrowned king of the state's fisheries belt.
Locals allege that although a lookout notice had been issued against him naming him as the prime accused in organising the mob attack, Shahjahan has been severally found moving about the area in carefree abandon. In fact, it took 19 long days after the assault by the mob for ED to conduct fresh raids at the TMC leader's Sandeshkhali home. This sluggishness strengthens the suspicion that there is a deliberate bid to safeguard the culprit. During the six-hour search inside the house, no significant material was found. “It seems that the documents have been removed from this house during the last fortnight. We have sealed the house," the ED officers told the press.
WOMEN LEAD
Following Shahjahan’s absence, the area has grown tense as common people have gathered courage to voice openly their resentment against the gruesome misdeeds of Shahjahan and his henchmen. The situation has given clear signs that something was just waiting to happen. The simmering ember of discontent of a large number of villagers, mostly adivasis, who have been at the receiving end of atrocities perpetrated by Shahjahan and his accomplices for years flared up when the local Trinamool with the help of outsiders tried to take out a rally on February 7, apparently to condemn the ED raid a month ago. The real plan allegedly was to hit back against the ‘disobedient’ villagers who had dared to challenge their authority and to silence their voices of dissent.
As this news spread from village to village, the message of resistance fanned out in the region. People, especially women took to the streets with brooms, cudgels and staves. When armed miscreants from Tuskhali, Jeliakhali, Daudpur, Khulna, Hatgacha came to Sandeshkhali Ferry Ghat to join the procession, they faced stiff resistance from the villagers. The situation heated up when glass bottles were thrown at the villagers in the presence of the police. Some of the villagers were instantly injured. This enraged the already infuriated mob. A terrible rumpus started. Sensing grave danger, the outsiders, with the help of the police, jumped onto motor boats and even into the river to save their lives.
After that the irate villagers gathered at the Sandeshkhali police station and started agitating. The protesters demanded that Sheikh Shahjahan, and his aides Shibaprasad Hazra, Uttam Sardar, Laltu Ghosh should be arrested immediately. A large police contingent including the rapid action force reached the spot and tried to bring the situation under control. Dhamakhali-Sandeshkhali ferry service stopped, all shops downed their shutters. When police lathicharged people to disperse them, the people became angrier. Finally under pressure from the agitators, the police announced that the two including Uttam Sardar were being arrested and the rest would be arrested soon.
On February 8th morning, when the general public came to know that contrary to the police statement, Uttam Sardar had been escorted to safety without being arrested, the agitation resumed and grew more intense. Men and women gathered everywhere, including at Sandeshkhali Police Station, Trimohani Market and elsewhere. This time also women were at the forefront of the movement with brooms, sticks and branches of trees in their hands. They started a protest march. Trinamool party office adjacent to the BDO office was rummaged. “They tested our patience and now it is our turn to react,” the protesters said. “Today we will give them a taste of their own medicine.” Properties linked to Hazra and Sardar were ransacked, and set ablaze.
BARBARIC TORTURE
A question naturally arises as to why people, especially women of Sandeshkhali, have so much hatred against the Shahjahan gang? The answer is terrifying, a saga that seems to be straight off the pages of a book on medieval barbarism. Take for example Shibaprasad Hazra aka Shibu. He has reportedly expropriated hundreds of bighas of land belonging to the villagers. Often he levies ‘begar’ (forced unpaid labour) from the villagers in these plots. Anyone who dares to demand payment is visited by his hired thugs and beaten up. Several people have been crippled by these kinds of torture. So people want Shibu to be arrested. They firmly believe that the police have kept him secure in their own hideout.
The degree of atrocities committed by these Trinamool leaders is unthinkable. Bighas after bighas of adivasi crop lands obtained by pattas have been taken away for fish farming. At first some lease papers were signed but the powerful lessees stopped paying lease rent in a short while. Earlier, paddy was cultivated on several hundred bighas of land. Shahjahan's gang took possession of all that land by force. The crop land has been converted into bheri (fish farms). Salt water has been injected into the encroached agricultural land by cutting the dam of the nearby Raimangal River. After that fish farming started there.
But the story of this terrible torture does not end here. Why are women today in the front line of resistance? The protesting women allege that Shahjahan’s gang forced their school-going boys to join political rallies and even turned some of them into armed goons. Trinamool backed gangsters roamed the villages looking for young women. These women were taken to the party office at night and sexually abused. If anyone refused her closest family members would all be subjected to unspeakable torture. There was outright collusion between the local police and these men. It is the police that helped the goons rule Sandeshkhali. “We are certainly not going to tolerate it any longer. For years we have been living helplessly, miserably in fear. Shahjahan’s rise has been a curse to us,” the villagers say.
As the resistance in Sandeshkhali is intensifying, the government's discomfort with the rising popular support for the movement is becoming more and more conspicuous. The police administration has come into action to save the situation. Section 144 has been clamped and the internet service has been shut down to quell the spontaneous outcry. As a face saving measure, the Trinamool has decided to sacrifice Uttam Sardar. It was decided to suspend him from the party for six years and the police arrested him immediately after this announcement. As a balancing act, the day after this arrest, on February 11th morning, the police from the Sandeshkhali police station came to Kolkata and arrested the former Sandeshkhali MLA and CPI(M) state committee member Nirapada Sardar from his house in south Kolkata. It should be mentioned here Shibaprasad Hazra, on the basis of whose FIR the police have arrested the ex-MLA, is currently being declared an absconder in the police records. In a state where the rule of law is scarce, things like this are bound to happen.
SOLIDARITY ACTIONS
CPI(M) has strongly protested the arrest of Sardar who had committed no offence at all. After his arrest, a protest and dharna programme continued in front of Bansdroni police station in Kolkata since morning demanding his unconditional release. Party state secretary Md Salim was present there and said that once the struggle under the red banner gave the right of land to the refugees in Gosaba, Haroa, Minakhan and Sandeshkhali. Today Trinamool is evicting those families. Whatever the talk of Hindu-Muslim division, we see Shibu Hazra and Sheikh Shahjahan united in the scheme of looting and torturing the people, he commented.
On that very day, DYFI, SFI and AIDWA leadership entered Sandeshkhali after crossing all the police barriers. A brief meeting was held in front of Sandeshkhali police station. Kaninika Bose Ghosh, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Debanjan Dey and others were present. They said women have put up an extraordinary resistance. They are openly talking about the horrors of torture. We have watched videos, listening to the abused women. We are shocked, to say the least, they said.
CPI(M) called a 12-hour shutdown in Block No. 1 and 2 of Sandeshkhali on February 12, to protest against the arrest of Nirapada Sardar. On February 12th morning, it was seen that the police could not produce the case diary when Sardar was taken to the Basirhat court. For this the hearing had to be delayed for one and a half hours. The police repeatedly faced reprimands in court for bringing him to the court lock-up without an arrest memo, not submitting the case diary on time and other lapses. In fact, the police could not bring any specific charges to explain why Nirapada Sardar was arrested. After lengthy legal arguments by both sides, the Basirhat Sub-Divisional Court ordered three-day police custody of Nirapada Sardar.
Now it stands exposed that Sandeshkhali, like many other pockets of the state, has been turned by the ruling party under Shahjahan into a mini-fiefdom of corruption, terror and plunder. With Shahjahan on the run, Sandeshkhali's resistance has practically acquired a mass character. At the moment, Sandeshkhali has chosen the path of steadfast protest.
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