Two ED and CRPF vehicles were damaged in the attack at Sarberia village, 77km from Kolkata.The team of eight ED officials and accompanying CRPF personnel fled – first on foot, then in autos and West Bengal police’s vehicles and on local villagers’ bikes – to escape the mob armed with bricks and sticks.
Image credit: PTI
According to an FIR at Sandeshkhali police station, media vehicles were targeted. Two television crew members, too, were injured, police said. The man whose home ED sought to search, local strongman and Trinamool Sandeshkhali-1 block president Sheikh Shahjahan, was not at home, villagers said.
After WB attack, ED may ask for 24×7 security during raids
But in a statement released more than 12 hours after the attack, ED claimed Shahjahan was very much at home.
“The door was locked from inside and he refused to open the door. His mobile location indicated he was inside,” ED added.
Junior Union home minister Nisith Pramanik, who is a BJP MP from Bengal, termed the violence against the ED team as “an attack on the federal structure” and said Centre has taken serious note of it. He hinted that Centre may take action to prevent such recurrence in future.
ED may ask for round-the-clock security by central paramilitary forces for its offices and teams during searches in ‘hostile’ opposition-governed states.
Governor CV Ananda Bose said he was alarmed by the ‘ghastly incident’ and held the state government responsible for the violence. “As a governor, I reserve all my constitutional options for appropriate action at the appropriate time,” he said, adding that he wanted the state police to get over their “ostrich-like attitude”. He summoned the chief secretary, the home secretary and the DGP to Raj Bhavan to know what action the state had taken against the culprits. “Bengal is not a Banana Republic.”
Sandeshkhali was part of the 18 places that ED teams went to on Friday as part of their probe in the alleged Rs 550-crore scam.
ED officials, led by assistant director Ravinder Dahiya and escorted by CRPF jawans, reached Shahjahan’s house in Sarberia around 7am. They waited for some time, knocking on the door of the locked house and calling out to check whether anyone was inside, before deciding to prise open the lock. No one from the Sandeshkhali police station was present as local cops were not informed of the raid, officials said.
A crowd of villagers, mostly women, started gathering around the local strongman’s home, keeping a watch on ED officials’ activities. Some of them protested when they saw the personnel trying to break open the lock and a stone was hurled from the mob, hitting one of the ED officials on his head, resulting in a melee.
ED and CRPF personnel found themselves heavily outnumbered and started retreating as the mob tried to chase them down. Some of them got into one of their cars on the main road even as the others sought help from some villagers to escape.
Three ED officials — Somnath Datta, Rajkumar Ram and Ankur Gupta — were injured. Ram was admitted to a hospital and got six stitches for his head injury. The other five ED officers reached Kolkata via Dhamakhali after crossing the Kalindi by boat.
“It was a horrifying experience. They parked trucks on the road to prevent our vehicles from moving out,” a driver of one of the ED vehicles said. Some CRPF jawans, who managed to flee the spot, said they saw everything from a distance. “We could not do anything as there were hundreds who surrounded us and hurled stones,” a CRPF jawan said.
Trinamool Congress reacted by lashing out against central agencies and central forces for “provoking locals” by “selectively” raiding homes of “Trinamool leaders and workers” as part of their pre-poll script. It termed the attack a “spontaneous outburst from locals” as “even patience has its limits”.
“These selective raids have misled and incited people, leading to mass protests. This is nothing but a part of a conspiracy to defame Bengal. They (BJP) will always provoke. I appeal to all not to step into this trap. The state government is keeping an eye,” Bengal minister Shashi Panja told reporters. He added that TMC does not defend, encourage or support violence.