Last Updated: March 06, 2024, 14:58 IST
Former Trinamool Congress leader Shahjahan Sheikh. (PTI photo)
Agency sources also told News18 that the West Bengal CID was not on legal footing to deny Sheikh’s custody to them as the CBI was armed with the high court’s order as well as a duly lodged FIR
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) lodged an FIR against former TMC strongman Shahjahan Sheikh at 4.30pm on March 5 — soon after the Calcutta High Court judgment gave permission to proceed — and then went to take Sheikh’s custody from the West Bengal CID which refused to hand him over. News18 has accessed a copy of the said FIR.
The CBI has named Sheikh as its number one accused in the FIR for the attack on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on January 5 when they had gone to arrest Sheikh. The FIR has been lodged under serious charges like rioting armed with deadly weapon, wrongful restraint and criminal intimidation among other charges. The CBI in the FIR has called Sheikh the “convener of TMC Sandeshkhali, North 24 Parganas” and has named unknown persons/mob as an additional accused.
The CBI, in fact, has lodged two more FIRs, including one against the assault that the ED faced while arresting another TMC leader Shankar Addhya in Bangaon on the intervening night of January 5 and 6. The third FIR has been lodged in the matter of damage to public property like vehicles of the ED. All the three cases have been entrusted for investigation to the Kolkata branch of the CBI. The FIRs have also attached the Calcutta High Court order of March 5 that gave the go-ahead to the CBI.
Agency sources also told News18 that the West Bengal CID was not on legal footing to deny Sheikh’s custody to them as the CBI was armed with the high court’s order as well as a duly lodged FIR. The Supreme Court had neither entertained any written petition by the West Bengal government till Tuesday evening, nor offered any relief, the agency sources said. The Calcutta High Court on March 6 again told the West Bengal CID to hand over Sheikh to the CBI. The central agency is hence yet again moving for Sheikh’s custody from the West Bengal Police.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking in Basirhat, West Bengal, on Wednesday, slammed the TCM government for trying to shield Sheikh and moving the HC and the Supreme Court to save him. “The TMC government has faced setbacks at both the courts. The state government is not believing the women of the state but is busy saving the accused,” PM Modi said.
