3 TMC ministers meet residents of Sandeshkhali, CM targets BJP

Three West Bengal ministers on Sunday rushed to Sandeshkhali, which has been witnessing violent protests since early this month against allegations of sexual atrocities on women and land grabbing by local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, to speak to the residents about their grievances, even as chief minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for trying to create disturbance in the state.

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After meeting aggrieved people who assembled at Kalinagar village, fire services minister Sujit Bose, irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick and forest minister Birbaha Hansda said the ruling TMC will raise money and compensate those who have suffered losses because of local party leaders. Sandeshkhali's TMC legislator Sukumar Mahata also accompanied them.

"We are here to listen to the grievances and also meet our local leaders," Bose said, and claimed that allegations have come from a few places in Sandeshkhali, which has 16 panchayat areas. "We are not trying to muzzle anyone's voice; the accused persons have been arrested."

The state land department also opened camps to register the complaints of villagers about alleged land grabbing by some local TMC leaders. Several farmers have alleged their land were forcefully grabbed and turned into salt water fisheries over the last decade, making the soil unfit for conventional farming.

Since police have clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), barring assembly of five or more people, at 19 locations in Sandeshkhali, the ministers said they met the villagers at Kalingar, where the order was not in force.

A six-member BJP panel, headed by Union minister Annapurna Devi, was stopped from visiting Sandeshkhali by the administration, citing prohibitory orders. BJP chief JP Nadda had formed the high-level panel to gather information from the area and file a report to him at the earliest.