Mamata slams CBI over arms recovery in Sandeshkhali
The CM says police were kept in the dark and seized items might have been brought by agencies; BJP leader says Trinamool appeasement politics led to anti-national elements having free run
Aday after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recovered a huge cache of arms from Sandeshkhali, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday expressed scepticism regarding the raid, saying that the recovered items “might have been brought by o¨cials of the agency”.
The seizure of foreignmade arms from Sandeshkhali, which has been on the boil over allegations of land grab and sexual assault, has emerged as a political issue in the State amidst the election.
“If a recracker goes o¤ in Bengal, the NIA, CBI, NSG are coming to investigate. It seems that a war is going on. The State police were not informed. It is not known what was found. There was no evidence. The seized items might have been brought by them (CBI) in a car,” the Trinamool Congress chairperson said addressing an election rally.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership in West Bengal has described the recovery of arms from Sandeshkhali in connection with the January attack on an Enforcement Directorate team by a mob allegedly instigated by now-suspended Trinamool
Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan as an “act of terror”. BJP State spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the Trinamool’s appeasement politics has led to “anti-national elements” having a free run in the State.
Meanwhile, in another development, the Trinamool leadership wrote to the Election Commission on the raid at Sandeshkhali, calling it an “unscrupulous
raid” on an “empty location” at Sandeshkhali during the second phase of polling in the State.
In the letter dated February 26, the party made a similar allegation as was made by the Chief Minister on Saturday .“It further iterated that in the absence of any representative of the State government, the purported recovery of arms and ammunition is possibly a ploy by the BJP in conspiracy with the CBI and the NSG to plant weapons in the site,” the letter by Trinamool said.
Bomb explosion
Meanwhile, speaking at a public meeting in Asansol, she also pointed out that a BJP leader had stored bombs in his house. The Trinamool Congress on Saturday alleged that several people were injured after a bomb exploded at the house of a relative of a BJP leader in Basirhat.