As three prime accused in the Sandeshkhali crisis, namely Shibu Hazra, Uttam Sardar and Ajit Maiti, are already behind the bars on various charges, the local women there on Monday started a fresh stir identifying a ‘new villain’ in the game.

The local women with sticks and brooms in their hands assembled in front of the residence of local Trinamool leader Shankar Sardar, known to be a close confidant of both the absconding ruling party leaders Sheikh Shahjahan and his younger brother Sheikh Sirajuddin.

Besides raising slogans demanding Shankar Sardar’s arrest, the protesting women also destroyed portions of the outer periphery of his residence.

They claimed that the Trinamool leader was mainly responsible for illegally grabbing acres of ‘barga’ land in the area and handing them over to Sirajuddin for setting up pisciculture farms.

Barga land refers to a piece of land that gets cultivated not by the owner, but someone else on a condition that a share of the produce must be given to the owner. The man cultivating the land is called a ‘bargadar’ or share-cropper.

“He also used to snatch our job cards under MGNREGA as well as the cards for the government housing scheme under PMAY. If anyone protested, they were beaten up. They even stopped supply of food from the fair price shops,” said a protesting woman.

The Superintendent of Basirhat district police, Hossain Mehdi Rehman, reached the spot with a large police contingent and persuaded the protesting women not to take law into their hands after which the protesters left the place.

However, denying the allegations, Shankar Sardar claimed that some villagers are looking for excuses to attack him.

A police contingent has been deployed in front of his house to prevent any fresh attack.

(This article has been published via a syndicated feed)