Sahib we have nothing left with us … they have taken our lands — forcing our men to migrate to Chennai as migrant labourers, our Ijjat (honour) and our money, everything," complains a housewife who has fled with her young children to her brother's house at adjacent Dhamakhali.
"We have to work on their lands and fisheries — which once belonged to us before their gunmen forcibly occupied them — for days on end without being paid … and if we ask for our wages our men are lifted away and return with broken limbs or nose," says Purnima Malik one of those hundreds of women who have gheraoed the Sandeshkhali police station in demand of justice.
Sample a third and more horrible a story. "Many of us have no honour left the TMC goons have divided us in groups based on physical features … then they suddenly take us away on gunpoint to their bosses' houses … you can't speak a word … your husband will not protest lest being shot dead," says another housewife refusing to lend her name for obvious reasons.
That is not all. The men of Shahjahan and his henchmen Shiboprosad alias Shibu Hajra and Uttam Sardar have forcefully taken out lands, converted them into fisheries without a single penny being paid to them, the locals complain.
"When asked for payment they call us for meeting … and when our men go to meet them they are beaten up… if you go to the police they simply will look the other way … the Barobabu (inspector) will ask you to settle things out with the tormentors," said Anima another woman adding how one of the villagers who dared to file a complaint with the police was taken away I the night.
"The next day their men came with his body claiming he had died in an accident and asked us to do the last rites and leave the village without delay after transferring all our properties … since then we have not returned to the village," informed another farmer whose father was murdered by the TMC goons.
"In 2006 Mamata Banerjee fought for 1000 acres of land at Singur where an industry was to come up but here they have forcibly occupied 1250 acres of land and converted their character and there is no administration, no court order no nothing … we brought Mamata to power and she is now sucking us dry … the lands were given to our ancestors by Jyoti Basu government as patta and now the TMC jotdars (landlords) are snatching them back," said Saheb Dolui a local farmer and activist.
True, if Nandigram had degenerated into a killing field in the closing years of the Marxist rule the nondescript boondocks of Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas bordering Sunderbans and Bangladesh has been reduced to a veritable anarchy. The hapless villagers here have been fighting with their backs against the wall with their fight for right culminating into a revolt against the local Trinamool Congress chieftains like Sahjahan, Shibu Hajra and Uttam Sardar.
While Shahjahan a district board member and local strongman has often been described as a "tiger" by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Cabinet colleagues Hajra and Sardar are his henchmen and important district level leaders.
Though infamously known in the State circuit for the past several years the trio's name shot into prominence in the first week of January when hundreds of armed people allegedly at their behest attacked a team of Enforcement Directorate officials and the central forces escorting them when they were raiding Shahjahan's house in conection with the Rs 10,000 crore ration scam that has led to the arrest of senior Bengal Minister Jyotipriya Mallick and a TMC municipal chairman Shankar Adhya.
Shahjahan, Hajra and Sardar have been at large ever since with the police "trying to locate them." This, whereas the locals inform "all the three are roaming free in the area … now slipping into the Sunderbans and then resurfacing again."
Cut to Sandeshkhali. The embers burning over the past few days blew up into a violent protest movement on Friday with hundreds of women and men laying a siege of the Sandeshkhali police station after Hajra's men attacked Zeliakhali village --- another river island in the vicinity of Sanedshkhali --- with muskets and one-shotters, sources said.
"They beat up our men who had to be hospitalized … after that the angry villagers assembled from a number of islands and torched the farmhouses, poultry farms and other properties of Shibu Hajra," a local said adding "women armed with sticks, hansua and kitchen tools gheraoed the police station a la Nandigram struggle even as large contingent of police force led by AD (Law and Order) Manoj Verma and Superintendent of Police Hossain Mehedi Rahaman rushed to the area.
"We are investigating the matter as complaints have been filed against Shahjahan and others," Verma said before asking the villagers to retreat. Rahaman said "a search for accused is on."
Verma said, "Investigation is underway into all complaints that have been lodged, and action will be taken. At the same time, if someone takes up the law into their hands, the law will take its own course. The situation is at present under control."
Meanwhile, the TMC leadership in Kolkata blamed the BJP and the CPI(M) for inciting the local villagers "so as to fish in the troubled waters … but the government will not allow to do this." Bengal Minister Partha Bhowmick said "there could be discontentment against one or two people but that does not mean that everyone is bad … people's grievances will be addressed."
He further said that "if the BJP thinks that they will divert the attention from the MNREGA movement of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is raising her voice against the central deprivation of the State by non-payment of workers' wages in 100-days work scheme, non-payment of funds for rural housing, roads etc then they are living in a fools' paradise … they cannot divert the attention from the main issues."
