There was fresh tension at Sandeskhali when a group of BJP supporters including women on Sunday thrashed some Trinamool Congress workers and virtually kept hostage a local MLA for making fake videos on the Sandeshkhali incident. The purported video suggested that the BJP had paid 72 women Rs 2,000 each to make false complaints of rape.
Local TMC workers Tatan Gayen and Dilip Mallick were allegedly beaten up by the BJP workers while they were holding a closed-door meeting with the local TMC MLA Sukumar Mahto. The incident took place near the Sandeshkhali Police Station. A large contingent or RAF was deployed to defuse the situation. The incident took place during a protest movement by the BJP against alleged making of fake
videos where a BJP local leader was seen telling that the entire Sandeshkhali movement was thehandiwork of a senior BJP leader who had purchased women to make false claim of rapes.The Sunday’s incident came simultaneously with another fake video emerging where it was alleged that the same BJP leader had promised Rs 2,000 each to 72 women to claim that they were sexually assaulted by the TMC goons.
The Pioneer had not confirmed the contents of the video footage. Sandeshkhali is a riverine island at the mouth of Sunderbans in North 24 Parganas where a local TMC strongman Sheikh Shahjahan and his men had allegedly grabbed hundreds of acres of lands belonging to the poor farmers. Some of local women were also gang-raped according to initial complaints registered before the police. Sk Shahjahan was presently in CBI custody.