Sandeshkhali violence: ED moves high court, state police knock on agency door
Telegraph | 11 January 2024
On a day the Bengal police landed up at the Enforcement Directorate’s regional office at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake, purportedly to record statements of agency officers in connection with last week’s Sandeshkhali violence, the agency moved Calcutta High Court alleging assault, intimidation, harassment and obstruction in carrying out investigations in the Bengal ration distribution and paddy procurement scam cases against the state’s personnel in uniform.
Five days have passed since the mob assault on a five-member ED raiding team in Sandeshkhali, North 24-Parganas, left three agency officers injured, yet the prime accused in the case, Trinamul leader Shahajahan Sheikh continues to evade police net. Bengal police have registered three cases in connection with the ED raid in Sandeshkhali last Friday and the mob fury the team faced. One of those cases is against the ED itself. The police said a case under sections relating to house trespass, mischief and criminal intimidation had been initiated against the ED officials who were part of the raiding team.
While the second case was registered against an “unknown mob” that had attacked “government officials” and journalists, the third is against “Shahjahan Sheikh and associates” in connection with the assault on the central agency officials. The FIR against the agency was registered at the Nazat PS on the basis of a complaint lodged by the caretaker of Sheikh’s residence, the second was registered suo motu by the police and the third was lodged on complaints filed by the ED.
A separate case was also started at the Bongaon PS in connection with the alleged attack on the ED officers on the same day during raids at the residence of Shankar Addhya, where the agency officers were at the receiving end of mob fury following the arrest of the Trinamul leader.
On Wednesday morning, Sananda Goswami, DSP, Basirhat Police, accompanied by two policemen and a person carrying camera equipment (perceptively to videograph statements) reached the CGO Complex but left soon after failing to record the statement of the agency’s deputy director who was the complainant on behalf of the ED. “The complainant is busy with other work and could not record his statement,” Goswami told media persons on her way out.
A team of state police officers led by DSP (HQ), Bongaon, Dipendra Tamang, also reached the ED office later for the same purpose but was also refused cooperation on the same grounds, it was learned.
Meanwhile, the agency filed a petition with the Calcutta High Court seeking judicial intervention into its allegation that despite the mob fury that was unleashed on the agency officers, the police went ahead and started a case against the agency. Refuting the allegation that the ED tried to break open into Sheikh’s house, which was bolted from inside, without a court warrant, the investigators have been maintaining the officers carried all necessary paper documents, including a warrant, while conducting the search operation.
The petition was admitted by the Bench of Justice Joy Sengupta and the matter is likely to be heard this week.
The ED had previously alleged that despite repeated attempts, it failed to secure copies of the FIRs which were lodged by the police both in respect to its own complaint as well as against it and stated that the only knowledge the agency had about the FIR lodged against it was by means of media reports. It had also pointed fingers at the state police for going soft on its attackers by diluting the cases slapped on the miscreants and alleged that the police were mere onlookers during the attack in Bongaon despite the agency notifying them of the scheduled raid well in advance.
In a separate development in the case related to the arrest of Shankar Addhya, the ED claimed in court that it has identified some 95 foreign exchange trading companies which were used to launder scam money. While six of these companies were run in the names of Addhya’s closest relatives, the remaining were owned under fake names.
The agency issued an appearance summons to Malay Addhya, brother of the arrested leader and owner of one of the companies, on Wednesday but the witness gave the agency a miss.