Here is how TMC is attempting to derail the cattle-smuggling probe

The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC authorities in West Bengal is leaving no stone unturned to impede the investigation of the cattle smuggling case. TMC is taking part in one trick after the opposite to hinder the CBI and ED from conducting probe and questioning the accused TMC’s ‘Bahubali’ chief Anubrata Mondal. 

Apparently, the state police are additionally aiding the TMC authorities in its determined designs for causes greatest identified to them solely. 

On March 21 this yr, Badu Sheikh, the deputy chief of the close by TMC-controlled Barshal gram panchayat was killed in a bomb assault. 

In order to avenge Sheikh’s dying, ten individuals had been massacred in Bogtui village in Birbhum whereby a home was locked from exterior by the attackers earlier than it was set on hearth killing 10 individuals together with an eight-year-old youngster. Following the incident, the Calcutta High Court ordered the CBI to analyze the Bogtui carnage in addition to Badu Sheikh’s homicide.

Lalan Sheikh, the right-hand man of Badu Sheikh and an accused within the Bogtui carnage was arrested by the CBI on December 3  after an eight-month-long hunt. However, in a surprising flip of occasions, the TMC affiliate allegedly dedicated suicide in CBI custody on December 12. Lalan Sheikh was discovered lifeless at CBI camp workplace in Rampurhat in Birbhum.

Taking leverage of the chance that Lalan’s alleged dying gave, the TMC carried out its plan to aim to impede the CBI probe and defend Anubrata Mondol, a detailed aide of Mamata Banerjee and an accused within the multi-crore cattle smuggling case.

West Bengal’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) served a discover to CBI looking for an evidence for the dying of Lalan Sheikh. Earlier, the state police registered FIR towards CBI officers charging them with Lalan Sheikh’s homicide on the premise of a criticism lodged by deceased Lalan’s spouse Reshma Bibi. 

Seven CBI officers had been named within the FIR file by WB police alleging the custodial homicide of Sheikh, together with two senior CBI officers circuitously linked to the case, a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) and a Superintendent of Police (SP). CBI’s investigating officer within the Bogtui bloodbath case has additionally been named within the case. CBI’s Investigating Officer (IO) of the cattle smuggling case Susanta Bhattacharya, who was arrested in August this yr by Bengal police, has additionally been named within the FIR.

However, CBI moved Calcutta High Court towards the FIR, and the court docket directed the police to not take coercive motion towards the CBI officers, however allowed them to proceed the probe. CBI maintains that Sheikh died by suicide.

The state police filed the FIR after Lalan Sheikh’s household filed a criticism towards the CBI officers. They had alleged that the CBI officers within the Rampurhat camp had tortured Lalan Sheikh to pressure him to falsely implicate senior TMC leaders as masterminds of the Birbhum bloodbath. In one other criticism, Lalan’s spouse Reshma Bibi alleged that a number of gadgets sealed by the CBI officers went lacking from her residence.

The query right here arises is that if Reshma Bibi was instructed by somebody to lodge a criticism that too by naming senior CBI officers and the Investigating Officer. The fast motion by the state police in registering FIR and retaining the names of CBI officers as accused means that it was being executed intentionally to intimidate the central probe company.

In its report, Swarajya identified the sample by which the TMC authorities and the West Bengal police have been taking measures to derail the probe utilizing intimidation techniques and implicating CBI officers on false expenses.

Quoting a CBI officer as saying, Swarajya reported, “These are patently false complaints. There is no way she (Reshma Bibi) knew the names of the senior officers including the investigating Officer of the cattle smuggling case which totally unrelated to Lalan sheikh’s death. It is very apparent that Reshma Bibi was tutored to name CBI officers in her complaint.”

Other than this, the West Bengal police lately took TMC chief Anubrata Mondal into its custody in what appeared like an try to forestall the Enforcement Directorate from taking Mondal to Delhi for questioning. 

On December 19, Hours after a court docket in New Delhi granted a manufacturing warrant to ED to convey Mondal to the nationwide capital for questioning, an FIR was lodged towards Anubrata Mondal in reference to an alleged try and homicide in 2021. 

Interestingly, Shibthakur Mondal, an area Panchayat chief belonging to the TMC filed a criticism alleging that Anubrata Mondal had “nearly choked him to death” forward of the state meeting in 2021 throughout a celebration assembly in Dubrajpur. 

On December 20, Anubrata Mondal was produced earlier than an area court docket in Birbhum’s Dubrajpur, the place the court docket despatched Anubrata Mondal into seven-day police custody. As Anubrata Mondal challenged the manufacturing warrant, ED gave an oral assurance to the court docket that it’ll not execute the manufacturing warrant until January 9.

It is pertinent to say that Anubrata Mondal’s counsel didn’t even transfer a bail plea saying that the whole lot occurred immediately.  “We are trying to understand the gravity of the situation,” he mentioned.

The timing of the FIR raises suspicion that the Mamata Banerjee authorities is intentionally doing such methods to forestall ED from taking Anubrata Mondal to Delhi for questioning. Being conscious of the methods being performed ED may also be planning to take sure steps to avert any form of interference within the probe and intimidation of the officers who’re simply doing their obligation, the TMC authorities.

On 11 August, The CBI arrested Trinamool Congress (TMC) Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal in relation to the cattle smuggling case

The CBI has claimed to have recovered property value a number of crores of rupees that Mondal had reportedly registered within the names of his daughter, relations, and different shut associates. The central company believes that TMC Bahubali could have tried to divert the rip-off’s proceeds via lottery prizes a number of occasions.