West Bengal: BJP, Congress Delegations Stopped From Entering Violent-Stricken Sandeshkhali

Kolkata: A six-member fact-finding committee of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by a Union minister on Friday was stopped at Rampur near Sandeshkhali after they wanted to enter the Sandeshkhali village to talk to the people.

After a war of words between the police and the BJP members, the saffron camp members tried to connect with the alleged victims over video call and claimed that the alleged victims were crying and were asking them to visit the village.

After failing to convince the police, the BJP delegations met Governor CV Ananda Bose at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata to apprise him the situation.

Talking to the media outside Raj Bhavan, Union Minister Annapurna Devi firmly mentioned that they will visit Sandeshkhali soon.

“If needed we will seek court’s permission to visit Sandeshkhali. It is confirmed that we will visit Sandeshkhali and will talk with the victims. Right now, the police are behaving like ‘Bhakshaks’ and not ‘Rakshaks’. After returning to Delhi, we will also meet the President over the issue. We will give justice to the victims. In the video call we saw that women were crying and covering their faces and police were beating them,” said Annapurna Devi.

BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul, who was also with the delegation, demanded a CBI probe over the issue.

Union Minister Nisith Pramanick however, claimed that the central government and central force is ready to help out the state government over the Sandeshkhali issue. This is the third time that the saffron camp delegations were stopped from entering Sandeshkhali in North 24 parganas.

After BJP, the Congress delegation led by West Bengal Pradesh Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was also stopped at Rampur.

Chowdhury slammed the state government alleging that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is ‘queen of cruelty’.

Meanwhile, Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Caste Arun Haldar who visited Sandeshkhali on Thursday had met President Droupadi Murmu on Friday and demanded imposition of President’s rule in the state.

It may be recalled that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday had blamed ‘RSS’ over the Sandeshkhali unrest and also mentioned that the state police are trying to ‘control’ the situation.