Senior CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat was on February 20 allowed to visit the restive Sandeshkhali in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district after being initially stopped by police.
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The move by the local administration came after a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court presided by the Chief Justice allowed the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari and another BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh to go to Sandeshkhali and upheld a single Bench order that stayed for a week the Prohibitory Orders imposed in certain places there.
Ms. Karat, who said that she was stopped at Dhamakhali ferry ghat by the police saying that they apprehended breach of peace if she went to Sandeshkhali, was later allowed to visit the protests-hit area by the police.
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“Breach of peace occurred when women were called to the local Trinamool Congress offices and subjected to sexual assault, now it is a fight for justice,” Ms. Karat told reporters at Dhamakhali, from where one has to cross Kalagachi river to reach Sandeshkhali.
Ms. Karat who said that she and some other women CPI(M) leaders wanted to meet the alleged victims of sexual assault, later spoke to some women there. She claimed that what happened in Sandeshkhali was unprecedented. "Stopping us from going to Sandeshkhali is wrong and we protest this action," she said earlier, when she was stopped from going to Sandeshkali.
A large number of women in Sandeshkhali had accused Trinamool Congress strongman Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters of "land-grab and sexually assaulting" them under coercion.
Shajahan has been absconding after a mob, allegedly affiliated to him, attacked Enforcement Directorate officials who had gone to search his premises in connection with a ration scam on January 5.