'Mamata's rule has spawned many Sandeshkhalis in Bengal'

The CM is Bengal’s queen of cruelty, alleges Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury.

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Sandeshkhali, a sleepy hamlet about 75 km from Kolkata and close to the Bangladesh border, has been at the centre of a political storm for nearly a month. It has witnessed unprecedented protests over allegations of sexual abuse by scores of women against a local Trinamool Congress leader and his lieutenants. Visuals of hundreds of women waving wooden staff and boti (a curved blade fitted to a wooden base that is used by women in eastern India to peel, chop, dice and shred vegetables, fish and meat) to protest the exploitations have reached drawing rooms across the country.

The protests of the women forced West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose earlier last week to cut short his Kerala trip to rush to Sandeshkhali. After talking to the women there, Bose said: “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. This is a shame for a civil society.”

Bose has also submitted a report to the Ministry of Home Affairs, accusing the law enforcers of working hand in glove with “rowdy elements” in Sandeshkhali.

While the Trinamool Congress, led by its feisty supremo Mamata Banerjee, is trying to downplay the revolt saying it is an isolated incident and was masterminded by the RSS, BJP and the CPM, her detractors and impartial observers say that Mamata’s rule has spawned many Sandeshkhalis in Bengal.