Opposition Unites Against Trinamul Over Sandeshkhali Arrests

On Sunday, all three of the main opposition groups in Bengal were seen acting in unison, going to the streets and making aggressive declarations in an attempt to politically corner Trinamul over the two arrests that had occurred in Sandeshkhali.

Separate rallies were organized by the CPM and the BJP in response to the detention on Sunday of former CPM MLA Nirapada Sardar and local BJP leader Bikash Sinha for allegedly encouraging last week's riots in Sandeshkhali "against Trinamul goons".


Shibu Hazra, a local Trinamul official, filed a complaint after a crowd on Saturday stormed his house and set fire to a poultry farm. This led to the arrests.

Supporters of the CPM gathered outside the Bansdroni police station to protest against Sardar's detention.

"He was taken from his residence without providing any updates to his relatives," said Firdaus Shamim, Sardar's attorney.

Sardar had been claiming for the past few days that Sheikh Shahjahan, the strongman of Trinamul who is believed to have planned the attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers in January when they visited his village in Sarberia to investigate the alleged ration scam, was in Sandeshkhali and was not running away. Sardar had berated the officers for failing to place him under arrest.

"Nirapada Sardar, a former Sandeshkhali MLA and member of our state committee, was taken into custody. The goal of police work is to apprehend the innocent and shield the guilty. "Unconditional release of Sardar and all those wrongfully arrested is what we want," said Md Salim, state secretary of the CPM.

CPM representatives encountered "police hurdles" while attempting to reach Sandeshkhali, one of them being youth leader Minakshi Mukherjee.

"The cops stopped our leaders from going into Sandeshkhali. This is not the first instance. Salim said that "we are not intimidated" and that they will "proceed sooner or later".

In opposition to Sinha's detention, BJP members held protests outside of many police stations around the state. Suvendu Adhikari, the MLA for Nandigram, organized a protest against this "attack on democracy" in his district.

"This is rather awful. The cops are carrying out the commands of criminals. Bengal BJP chairman Sukanta Majumdar said, "What happened in Sandeshkhali is an expression of people's anger and the police are trying to suppress it."

The Congress also took issue with the police's performance in Sandeshkhali.

"This is just not acceptable. Bengal is violently butchering democracy. The innocent are being detained by police. Criminals who have the support of the current administration are contentedly carrying out their business, according to Congress spokeswoman Soumya Aich Roy.

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