BJP women leaders led by Bengal general secretaries Agnimitra Paul and Locket Chatterjee were stopped by the police at New Town on the outskirts of Kolkata from heading towards Sandeshkhali on Thursday afternoon.
Following a scuffle and a war of words with the police, the team was detained while the leaders started a sit-in at the site where they were stopped at around 1:40 pm.
Demanding that they be arrested, the four BJP women leaders launched a sit-in at New Town police station later vowing not to leave the place till they were shown the arrest memo. They finally left the place at around 6:30 pm after the police showed them the document for being under preventive arrest.
Over a hundred BJP supporters, a sizeable number of them women, laid a siege outside the police station even as officers tried to reason with them to remain peaceful.
Paul, the Asansol South MLA, told PTI: “From the very beginning, the police of Mamata Banerjee are violating law with scant regard for the Constitution. They wanted to stop us from visiting Sandeshkhali though we had merely wanted to visit the pockets where prohibitory orders are not in force.
They forcibly took the BJP leaders including an ex-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh inside a police vehicle in Newtown but could not spell out the reason as no prohibitory orders were there, she claimed.
Accusing the police of illegally detaining people’s representatives and other senior BJP leaders, she said, “Being confronted by us, they had to finally come up with a written arrest memo and showing us as released.” The leaders were garlanded by party supporters as they left the place.
A police official said the four were taken to custody for violating prohibitory orders and later released on PR bond.
Alleging they were only offered tea and biscuits by the cops at the police station, Paul claimed: “The way the police personnel treated us shows their scant regard for people’s representatives and women leaders.” After being stopped earlier in the day, the leaders alleged they were being prevented from heading towards the trouble-torn area on grounds that the prohibitory section of 144 of CrPC remained clamped in certain parts of Sandeshkhali.
“This is absolutely outrageous. How can the police stop us in Kolkata citing movement restrictions in Sandeshkhali?” said Bharati Ghosh.
The police and the TMC have a lot to hide in Sandeshkhali even though atrocities committed there have already been exposed, Locket Chatterjee, an MP from Hooghly, claimed.
State BJP Mahila Morcha president Phalguni Patra, who was also part of the team, said, “We merely wanted to be on the side of the tormented women in Sandeshkhali who are still reeling under fear since musclemen of Shahjahan Sheikh are still at large and police are doing little to address their concerns.” Last week too, Locket Chatterjee was stopped at Bhojerhat while heading towards Sandeshkhali.
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh alleged that BJP leaders were trying to instigate people in the area and not allowing normalcy to return.
“The police are doing their job. The situation is normal at Sandeshkhali,” he said.
BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya said alleged that Mamata Banerjee was “shedding crocodile tears for women of Bengal”.
In a post on X, she said, “Yet again, Mamata Banerjee’s police stops BJP delegation, led by MP Locket Chatterjee, MLA Agnimitra Paul, former IPS & national spokesperson Bharti Ghosh and WB Mahila Morcha President Phalguni Patra, from visiting Sandeshkhali, while she saunters on the streets of Kolkata, with dark shadow of Sheikh Shahjahan looming over her.” Malviya accused the chief minister of having pawned the dignity of women of the state “to criminals like Shahjahan, for votes of a community”.
