Is police arrest of Trinamool strongman Sheikh Shahjahan a scripted drama?
By Sushil Kutty
A video of Trinamool Congress strongman Sheikh Shahjahan striding down a corridor with several police running to keep up with him has surfaced online. Shahjahan is a blocky, chunky fellow, and the video was of Thursday, February 29, morning, shortly after Sheikh was arrested following a 55-day absence from police eye that triggered speculation with the women of Sandeshkhali – an island in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal – accusing him of serial rape and sundry other sexual harassment crimes. The man also is an alleged land-grabber and extortionist. Men run scared of him and women cower in acquiescence. Intimidation of men whose wives he and his henchmen took away for pleasure is now part of dark lore. Believe it or not, Sheikh Shahjahan – no descendant of the Mughals – upset the lives of a large number of Bengal denizens. One journalist found himself behind bars and one TMC leader continues to be in jail. Shahjahan will be meeting this leader soon enough. The leader was Shahjahan’s mentor and then second fiddle as Shahjahan flirted with fortune and rose higher than the mentor. Shahjahan was ‘Bhai’ and there is a lot that is fishy about him including that he is the ‘Kingfisher of Sandeshkhali’, making the fishery business count for him and his “people”. Early in his “political career”, Sheikh Shahjahan impressed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Sheikh Shahjahan faces charges of torture, sexual harassment and land grabbing with the Trinamool Congress and the BJP fighting over the question of his arrest – is it true arrest or false arrest? The BJP calls it “staged arrest,” fixed and carried out only after the high court said any central investigating agency can arrest Shahjahan. The Trinamool Congress calls it an arrest that was waiting to take place once a few legal irritants were brushed aside.
Sandeshkhali burst crackers and some women danced on the dusty pathways when news of Sheikh Shahjahan’s arrest trooped in. From all the stories told and heard, more than half Sandeshkhali’s women were walking-talking sexually harassed survivors of Sheikh Shahjahan and his procuring agents’ sexual advances. It was a sordid drama played out in plain view in Sandeshkhali.
A story so unusual and so weird that it confounds with each new telling. The parts where the male of Sandeshkhali prove their impotence against Sheikh Shahjahan’s open season on their helpless women-folk is the worst kept secret of Sandeshkhali. Police will not get to the bottom of this lost manhood phenomena, but it sits on the collective conscience of Sandeshkhali and will remain there for decades if not centuries.
For the Trinamool Congress, Sheikh Shahjahan like any political operative is an asset and the Trinamool Congress is taking credit for arresting him. “The much maligned West Bengal Police is doing its job” is the refrain. Police were aware of the Sheikh’s exact whereabouts but arrested him only after the high court said CBI and ED can also “arrest”. Sheikh Shahjahan has been “Most Wanted” for the Enforcement Directorate ever since he masterminded a mob attack on an ED team that had come to fetch him. The court order was to arrest Sheikh Shahjahan within seven days. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said it showed the state was “confident of the ability of the state police.” Sheikh Shahjahan’s arrest will come in handy to claim the police of West Bengal was not a political tool of the Trinamool Congress unlike the Modi government which used the CBI, ED and the IT Department to forward its political agenda with arrests and interrogations of vulnerable politicians. Come to think of it, the BJP would have liked the Sheikh Shahjahan drama to continue to play for another couple of weeks, at least till as long as the dates of the Lok Sabha polls were not announced. Now, with the arrest of Sheikh Shahjahan, the excitement of Sandeshkhali, the titillating finer details of what went on behind the curtains, and the brigandish tales of Sheikh Shahjahan will rub out in time and then what?
All that will be left for the BJP is to claim that the arrest was scripted drama; and that the Trinamool and the police were in cahoots. One thing is for sure, Sandeshkhali at least is out of Sheikh Shahjahan’s spell. Perhaps even out of the Trinamool’s hand. Minus the strong arms of Sheikh Shahjahan and his henchmen, Sandeshkhali will slip out of orbit. Question is how many Sandeshkhalis are there in West Bengal? The Sandeshkhali culture goes back decades and is not a Trinamool invention. If anything, it was a discovery and Sandeshkhali was in the “safe custody” of Sheikh Shahjahan. But for the BJP and its penchant for letting loose central investigating agencies on political rivals, there wouldn’t have been a Sandeshkhali and the opposing narratives. The ED added fuel to the fire. And Sheikh Shahjahan gave to the unfolding drama colour even if the dark undertones never let go. Long after these elections are over, and long after justice has been delivered to the survivors of Sandeshkhali, the one figure who will not be forgotten will be the ‘Ravager of Sandeshkhali’. It’s a wonder West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee couldn’t spot a blemish on Sheikh Shahjahan. On Thursday, the Trinamool Congress suspended Sheikh Shahjahan from the party for six years. (IPA Service)