A team of CBI officials on Thursday subjected Mamata Banerjee’s election agent at Nandigram Abu Sufiyan to four hours intense grilling in relation to a murder case that took place soon after the April-May Assembly elections.
Sufiyan the vice chairman of the East Midnapore district board was summoned by the CBI following allegations that Debabrata Maity a BJP worker was murdered by alleged TMC goons a day after the Bengal election results were declared.
The victim died at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata on May 13. The CBI lodged a case in this connection on August 31 following the August 19 Calcutta High Court order directing the Agency to probe all the post-election murder cases.
Though the CBI has questioned many TMC district leaders during the investigation, this is the first time a leader known to be close to the Chief Minister was interrogated.
When contacted the Sufiyan denied his involvement with the murder saying “any death is unfortunate but implicating an innocent man for political mileage is no less deplorable … The BJP is implicating me in this case because they want to derive political mileage out of it… it is the handiwork of Suvendu Adhikari who has left the Trinamool Congress giving into the pressure of the central agencies whereas we have refused to get cowed down by the BJP and are continuing our fight under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee … this is the reason we are being harassed like this.”
Sufiyan a former protégé of Adhikari said “the harassment we are being subjected to is the result of keeping our spines straight and not giving into the pressure of the BJP which is threatening the entire country with agencies.”
The CBI which has registered three dozen cases and filed charge sheet in at least three related to post-poll violence has formed several teams comprising DIGs and SPs --- forensic experts, CISF personnel --- from Delhi, UP, Punjab, Karnataka etc. The CBI team is headed by a joint director.
In an unrelated development a team of National Investigation Agency on Thursday reached the house of BJP MP Arjun Singh at Jagaddal in North 24 Parganas to investigate bomb attacks on the parliamentarian’s house.
Some NIA officers led by an SP-level officer “conducted investigations in my house at Jagaddal,” the saffron MP who claimed to have been a target of the Trinamool Congress goons said adding he was cooperating with the investigating team.
The NIA officials also spoke to the local police officers, sources said. Crude bombs were hurled on two consecutive days at the Barrackpore MP’s house a few days ago, Singh claimed adding he and his family members were under threat of being eliminated by the TMC “which is finding it difficult to wrest back its organizational in Barrackpore till I am there.” Two of Singh’s close associates had been shot dead in the past less than two years.
“These attacks are being orchestrated by the Trinamool Congress and its leaders … they will kill me in the first instance and opportunity,” the BJP strong man who left the TMC before the 2019 general elections --- after being denied nomination from Barrackpore by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee --- and went on to defeat the then sitting MP Dinesh Trivedi by about 15,000 votes said. Singh has been three-time TMC MLA before he quit that party.
Earlier the Union Home Ministry upgraded the BJP MP’s security from Y+ to Z category following the bomb attacks and he is currently being protected by a posse of CISF personnel.
