The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will continue to probe the sexual assault and land-grabbing charges against Sandeshkhali strongman Shahjahan Sheikh and his aides as the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a challenge by the West Bengal government.

A bench of justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan also sought to know from the Mamata Banerjee government why the state was interested in protecting an individual.

Shahjahan was arrested by the CBI in February after a dramatic exchange with the Bengal cops. A day later, the Trinamool suspended him from the party for six years.

The Calcutta High Court in April ordered a CBI probe into the 42 cases against Shahjahan and his aides – including ration scam charges – observing that the matter was complex and required an impartial probe.

The West Bengal government challenged the order in the Supreme Court, which dismissed their petition on Monday and upheld the high court order.

The Supreme Court had on April 29 remarked why the state should come as a petitioner for an individual, to which the Bengal lawyer had argued that the high court judgment contained comments about the Bengal government.

Senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Bengal government, said today the high court direction to the CBI could have been restricted to just two FIRs relating to the ED, but it covers other alleged offences as well.

He, however, failed to convince the bench with Justice Gavai lamenting that the state “did not do anything for months” and asked again why the state was interested in protecting an individual.

To this, Mr Singhvi opposed several remarks in the high court order and said much work had been done in connection with the alleged ration scam.

The Supreme Court, still not persuaded, upheld the high court order. However, it said the court’s remarks against the West Bengal government and the cops must not influence the CBI probe.

The Sandeshkhali case pertains to multiple allegations of sexual assault, land grabbing, and ration scam perpetuated by Shahjahan and his aides.

The CBI is also probing an attack by Shahjahan’s supporters on an Enforcement Directorate team that was on its way to conduct a raid on the strongman. Several officers were injured in the attack.

Shahjahan went missing as the allegations against him and his aides broke. The Trinamool was accused of shielding him and came under heavy opposition fire in the state.

As the Sandeshkhali case snowballed into a political row ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP fielded a local woman as its candidate from the Basirhat constituency. She lost.

Basirhat:

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she was heartbroken over the plight of women in Sandeshkhali and asserted that the BJP should not have played with the dignity of women in the trouble-torn area as its “conspiracy now stands exposed”.

Addressing a rally in Basirhat, Ms Banerjee slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talking to Sandeshkhali protester and BJP candidate Rekha Patra over the phone, alleging that the country has the “worst track record in terms of women’s safety and security under the BJP rule”.

Sandeshkhali falls under the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat in North 24 Parganas district.

“I am sorry for whatever has happened to the women of Sandeshkhali and the way they have been humiliated. I express my sadness from the core of my heart. Nobody should dare to play with the dignity of women,” Ms Banerjee said.

“People would have never understood how the BJP had hatched the conspiracy, had the videos not surfaced. The BJP should not play with the dignity of women,” she said in her first visit to the Lok Sabha seat since the flare-up in January this year.

Ms Banerjee’s remarks come in the backdrop of multiple purported videos surfacing on social media, which claimed that a local BJP leader made several women of Sandeshkhali sign blank papers, which were later filled up as complaints of sexual assault against TMC leaders.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo said she would soon visit the Sandeshkhali region.

“As soon as our candidate Haji Nurul wins Basirhat, my first visit will be to Sandeshkhali. I will go to meet the people there,” she said.

The riverine Sandeshkhali area, situated on the borders of the Sundarbans, about 100 kilometres from Kolkata, has been on the boil since February with protests over allegations of sexual abuse and land grab against now-arrested TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters.

“PM calls someone over the phone, holds a tutored conversation, and circulates that on television. But how many people does he actually talk to like this? It is under his tenure that the country saw maximum crime against women. BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh is the first when it comes to crime against scheduled caste and scheduled tribe,” she said.

Ms Banerjee said both her party and the state government have taken immediate action whenever “one or two incidents” have taken place.

Since the first week of May, four videos have been released by a portal. In the first one, a man who claimed to be a BJP mandal president in Sandeshkhali was heard saying that the leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, was behind the “whole conspiracy”.

The second video was about women, who had earlier filed rape complaints, claiming that they were made to sign a blank paper by local BJP leaders and coerced to go to the police station.

In the third one, BJP candidate from Basirhat constituency and Sandeshkhali protestor

Rekha Patra was heard saying that she “doesn’t know the rape survivors who were taken to Delhi to meet the President.”

In the fourth video, a BJP leader purportedly said that over 70 women had received Rs 2,000 each for taking part in protests against TMC strongman Shahjahan Sheikh who is accused of sexual assault and land grab.

PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of any of the videos.

Referring to the Calcutta High Court order on Monday, which has issued an injunction restraining the BJP from publishing advertisements that violate the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) until June 4, the day the Lok Sabha election process ends, the chief minister alleged that the BJP has been spreading canards through misleading advertisements.

“As part of Modi Babu’s guarantee, they were spreading misleading advertisements in newspapers against us. We made multiple complaints against it stating that it was illegal but there was no action. Yesterday, the High Court also stated that it is indeed illegal. They don’t release funds of MGNREGA but spend crores on conspiracy, to buy votes and spread propaganda,” she added.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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