A court in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district on Monday issued arrest warrants against four Trinamool Congress leaders in connection with a post-poll violence probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the murder of BJP worker Debabrata Maity at Nandigram in the district.

The warrants issued by the Haldia sub-division court include the name of Sheikh Sufian aka Abu Sufiyan, who was the election agent of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the high-profile “battle for Nandigram” in the 2021 Assembly elections. In that high- profile battle, she ultimately got defeated by BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, who is currently the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal assembly. She later won a by-poll and continued as the chief minister.

The other three against whom the arrest warrant has been issued include Abu Taher (not known if this is the same person as Murshidabad MP Abu Taher Khan), Sheikh Amanulla and Sheikh Kushobi. It is learnt that CBI has recently filed a supplementary charge sheet in the case that was registered at Nandigram police station.

In that charge sheet, the central agency sleuths besides the four also mentioned the names of two other persons, namely Sheikh Saiyam Kazi and Sheikh Samsuddoah. They are charged under Sections 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

The CBI informed the court that though Kazi and Samsuddoah were cooperating in the course of investigation, the remaining four were in total non-cooperation mode and hence, an arrest warrant be issued against them.

The CBI has already arrested 12 persons in connection with the investigation, which include the son-in-law of Sheikh Sufian as well.

TMC workers attacked Debabrata Maity a day after the Bengal poll results were announced in May 2021. He died at a hospital in Kolkata days later. The CBI lodged a case in this connection in August 2021, and has recorded the statement of Maity’s family.

In February last year, the Supreme Court (SC) had granted anticipatory bail to Sheikh Sufiyan in another case of post-poll violence. The SC had failed to fast-track urgent petitions filed in the immediate aftermath of the large scale state-sponsored violence that broke out in WB after TMC’s win on May 2, 2021.

While our judiciary dragged its feet and even issued certificates of good governance to the Mamata regime, Hindu voters and workers of BJP were mercilessly targeted and dozens were killed, thousands of women raped or molested, and around 1 lakh had to flee their homes, including to neighbouring states like Assam, to save their lives. WB Police either turned a blind eye, or abetted the vicious attacks on Hindus, including advising Hindu women to ‘settle’ matters with TMC goons.

It took almost 4 months for our judiciary, in the form of Calcutta High Court, to hand over the probe into the most egregious cases of violence to central investigative agency CBI.

(With IANS inputs)