In an unprecedented development, one which is likely to have far reaching consequences, search team officials of the Enforcement Directorate were attacked, mercilessly assaulted and forced to flee for their lives while attempting to conduct a raid at the residence of Shahjahan Sheikh, a Trinamul Congress leader and close aide of an arrested minister in the Sandeshkhali area of North 24 Parganas on Friday morning.
The search operation was supposed to be conducted in connection with the ration distribution scam in Bengal which the central agency is currently probing. Nearly 30 per cent of the Public Distribution System (PDS) ration meant for beneficiaries in West Bengal was diverted to the open market, the Enforcement Directorate had earlier revealed.
Sajahan is considered to be a close associate of state minister Jyotipriyo Mallick who was arrested in connection with the multi-crore ration distribution scam.
The attacks, presumed to have been carried out by the followers of the Trinamul leader, were also unleashed on the central armed forces personnel accompanying the raiding team of the central agency and members of the media covering the raid.
While vehicles of the raiding convoy were ransacked by the miscreants and news TV cameras and broadcast equipment smashed, several journalists and support staff at the receiving end of the assault had to be admitted in a local hospital for medical attention.
ED officials, bleeding after head injuries and unable to board their badly damaged vehicles, were forced to flee the spot in an auto rickshaw to a location which remained unknown for hours to even their security officials who also had to escape and were last seen helplessly waiting in their ransacked vehicles on the Basanti Highway, several kilometers away from the ground zero of the attack. Subsequently, sources said, the injred ED offiials were admitted to Calcutta hopsital.
In a strongly worded statement on the unprecedented violence against Enforcement Directorate officers, Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose put the state administration in the dock and warned the Mamata Banerjee government of “Constitutional consequences” if it “failed to act effectively” in response to the attack carried out on the central agency, the CRPF and the media personnel in Sandeshkhali on Friday.
“It is a ghastly incident. It is alarming and deplorable. It is the duty of a civilized government to stop barbarism and vandalism in a democracy. If a government fails in its basic duty, then the Constitution of India will take its course. As a Governor I reserve all my Constitutional options at my disposal for appropriate action,” the Governor said.
