KOLKATA, March 17: Fresh protests erupted at certain pockets in Sandeshkhali in West Bengal on Sunday after locals demanded the immediate arrest of three more local Trinamool Congress leaders.The three leaders include a ruling party village Panchayat Chief Haji Siddik Molla and two of his associates Zulfikar Molla and Hasem Molla.
All of them are known to be the close associates of now-suspended Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan, the alleged accused mastermind behind the attack on ED and CAPF at Sandeshkhali on January 5.
Shahjahan is currently in the custody of the CBI.
The allegations made by the people against these leaders remain the same, alleged forceful grabbing of farmland of local villagers, illegal conversion of those farmland into pisciculture farms by flowing in saline water and sexual harassment against local women.
The fresh protests erupted just a day after CBI arrested Sheikh Shahjahan’s younger brother Sheikh Alamgir and two of his associates Mafizul Molla and Sirajul Molla after a marathon grilling for nine hours on Saturday.
West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose has decided to form a committee to evaluate how the illegally grabbed can be brought back again to the cultivable conditions before being given back to the original owners. Experts in the field have told that the topsoil of the farmlands allegedly snatched by TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh and now returned to the original owners have become unfit for agriculture due to the draining of saline water for fish farming, and the topsoil needs to be replaced on these farmlands. (PTI)
