6 min readMar 4, 2024 11:20 AM IST
First published on: Mar 2, 2024 at 01:14 PM IST
Sandeshkhali, a small island in the Sunderban delta of North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, has been in the eye of a storm since the beginning of the year. It all started with the Enforcement Directorate’s raid in village Sandeshkhali on January 5 at the premises of Sheikh Shahjahan, TMC zila parishad member, to investigate the alleged irregularities in the state’s public distribution system. The central agency’s officers were attacked while Shahjahan managed to escape. It is alleged that he along with his henchmen, with the support of the ruling party, were grabbing the lands of farmers and converting them into lucrative fish farms. Local women accused them of sexual abuse and harassment also.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose, who visited the area, described the situation in words which echoed across the country: “What I saw was ghastly, shocking, shattering to my senses. I saw something which I should never have seen. I heard many things which I should never have heard.”
Sheikh Shahjahan has since been arrested — 55 days after the issue came to light. The state government’s plea for belated police action is that there was “legal obstruction” insofar as the court had put a stay on the investigation. The argument is farcical as the court clarified that its February 7 order only stayed the formation of a CBI-state police joint special investigation team (SIT), and that any agency — state police, CBI or ED — could arrest Shahjahan. The state police had no option but to arrest Shahjahan when they realised that it would be embarrassing if a central agency intervened before them. In any case, why could Shahjahan not be arrested during the one-month period after the January 5 incident when the ED team was assaulted? A picture is worth a thousand words. The manner in which Shahjahan walked into the police station gave the impression as if some minister was being escorted by the police rather than a criminal being taken to a police station.
Earlier, the National Commission for Women’s team had visited Sandeshkhali and found negligence and complicity on the part of the West Bengal government and law enforcement officers. The chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Arun Halder, stated that they were confronted by a non-cooperative administration and that there was an atmosphere of fear in the village.
Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam had on February 20 expressed his dismay that “one person is holding the entire population to ransom and defying law” and deplored that Sheikh Shahjahan had not been arrested so far. “Either the state police don’t have the wherewithal (to arrest him) or the absconding person is outside their jurisdiction”, the court observed.
The National Human Rights Commission of India, taking suo motu cognisance of reports appearing in the media about the incidents in Sandeshkhali, stated that these indicate “prima facie violation of human rights shocking the conscience”.
The critical observations of all these individuals and institutions — the governor of West Bengal, the National Commission for Women, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the state high court and the NHRC — unfortunately made no impact on the government of West Bengal. The state government and its law enforcement agencies were, on the face of it, derelict and negligent in the performance of their duties. The chief justice was very charitable in his remarks on the police. The police had all the resources to apprehend the accused and there was no question of jurisdictional constraint. It is just that they were not prepared to arrest a notorious criminal for fear of offending the TMC leaders. This is inexcusable, to say the least.
The BJP may be trying to make political capital out of the incident, but that does not exonerate the state government from the fact that it did not uphold the rule of law and allowed a criminal to abscond just because he is a member of the ruling party — until the outburst of popular anger and judicial intervention forced its hand.
The role of the local administration and especially the police in the entire sequence of events has been pathetic. Their excuse would be that they are under pressure from the ruling party. That would be true, but there should be a Laxman Rekha for that. Are they going to barter away their souls to the devil just to be on the right side of the powers that be? There should be a threshold for tolerance of political interference in administrative matters.
The Supreme Court had in 2006 given a set of directions to the state governments for police reforms. One of these is related to the setting up of state security commissions with a view to insulate the police from outside pressures. The commission in most of the states has either not been set up or, if set up, its composition has been diluted and its powers truncated with the result that there is hardly any change in the ground situation. Politicians of all shades like to keep the police under their thumb and use its powers to promote their political agenda and, at the same time, screw the opposition. When is this going to change?
Sandeshkhali is merely a symptom, the malaise is much deeper. If the apex court’s directions are not implemented in letter and spirit, such incidents would continue to happen again and again. Yesterday, it was the strongman of Gonda; today it is the strongman of Sandeshkhali; tomorrow there will be another rogue in some other part of the country. And so, the charade will go on. We talk of Ram Rajya and we revere Sita. But, unfortunately, women’s honour has today become a commodity which is traded for political advantage.
The writer, a former police chief, has been campaigning for police reforms
Sheikh Shahjahan was arrested after he managed to evade the cops for 55 days. (Express Photo) 
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