Sandeshkhali Violence: The Enforcement Directorate arrested Sandeshkhali strongman Sheikh Shahjahan on Saturday. The probe agency arrested him after interrogation at Basirhat Sub Correctional Home in a PMLA case. Shahjahan is currently lodged in jail under judicial custody. He will be produced before the ED Special Court. The probe agency will seek his remand.
A team of ED officers interrogated him inside the jail for over four hours after getting permission from Basirhat sub-divisional court in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress had suspended him over the allegations of atrocities against women in Sandeshkhali. Shahjahan has also been accused of forcefully occupying lands in the Sandeshkhali area.
Even when a person is in judicial custody, he can be shown arrested in respect of any number of other crimes registered elsewhere. "He has been non-cooperative when our officers questioned him inside the jail this afternoon. So we decided to arrest him," the officer told PTI.
The former TMC leader was first arrested by the state police in February, and then the CBI earlier this month and by the ED on Saturday. Sheikh has played an active role in the multi-crore ration distribution scam and not only siphoned the money abroad but also utilised it in fishing businesses in Sandeshkhali, PTI reported, citing ED sources. "He has accumulated properties worth over Rs 30 crores and we want to know about the source of that huge amount of money. He did not answer a single question today following which we arrested him," he added.
Earlier this month, the CBI initiated questioning of Sheikh Shahjahan. The interrogation was conducted by the CBI's Kolkata ACB Unit, which was led by SPs Gaurav Singh and Umesh Kumar.
The questioning was carried out after the Calcutta High Court set a new deadline for Bengal police to hand over Shahjahan to the central agency. A bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya ordered Bengal police to hand over Shahjahan's custody to the CBI by 4.15 PM on March 6.
The Mamata Banerjee government filed a Supreme Court challenge to the ruling. When a CBI team went to take Shahjahan into custody, they were informed that the case was before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, however, denied the Bengal government's request for an urgent hearing.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had approached the high court against the Bengal police, claiming that the Supreme Court had not yet heard the state government's petition and that there was no pause in the high court's ruling. The ED has also sought action against officers from Bengal's Criminal Investigation Department for failing to follow the high court's orders.