The left parties and the Congress were seen on the same platform on Thursday against the ruling party, the Trinamool Congress, over the Saradha chit-fund scam.
leaders of both the parties, along with several social activists and depositors, reached the Bidhannagar Police Station to submit a memorandum but 24 of them, including a former CPI(M) MP, a Congress MlA and many social activists, were arrested after a scuffle between them and the police officials.
The protesters were demanding a CBI probe and interrogation of Trinamool politicians, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, named by arrested party MP Kunal Ghosh for their alleged involvement in the ponzi scam. He had named the leaders in a pre-taped interview which was earlier televised by a Bangla news channel and then widely reported.
The leaders, including former MP Sujan Chakrabarty, MlA Sukhbilas Barma, were arrested on charges of forcibly entering the police station and damaging Government property, Deputy Commissioner, Headquarters Subroto Banerjee said. Among those arrested were veteran CPI(Ml) leader Ashim Chatterjee, Samir Putatunda, civil society member Sunanda Sanyal. All of them formed the prominent faces of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s land movements in Singur and Nandigram. Those arrested were leading a deputation of about 400 people, including depositors who had lost their money in the chit-fund scam.
“We had gone in a deputation after informing the police beforehand. But when ten of us entered the police station and demanded a meeting with the police commissioner or any senior official for submitting our memorandum, the officials manhandled us,” former MP Sujan Chakrabarty said over the telephone.
Those who were the victims of the police highhandedness include senior persons like Dr Sanyal and Asim Chatterjee, he said. “If this is the people’s Government that Mamata Banerjee wanted to give us, for which we supported her, then God can only save Bengal,” Sanyal said. “Condemning the incident Rahul Sinha, Bengal BJP president, said democracy had become the biggest casualty in Bengal. He added that Trinamool was going the Marxist way by using the police against the common man.
CPI(M) leader and MP Shyamal Chakrabarty said his party will lodge a counter-FIR against the police for manhandling the “respectable people who had gone to submit a memorandum.” He said situations had reached such a pass in Bengal that “the thieves are running the Government and roaming outside while those whose houses have been burgled are getting arrested.”
Ghosh had earlier named a host of Trinamool leaders including those in the Ministry for their alleged links with jailed Saradha chief Sudipta Sen. The police however refused to take cognizance of Ghosh tapes. “We are not dependant on what a scamster says,” DC (DD) Arnab Ghosh said adding the police would jointly interrogate Sen and Kunal Ghosh. Meanwhile, the left Front and the Congress have lined up a host of programmes for Friday. The left would gherao all police stations in Kolkata and the Congress would organise road blockades.