Sandeshkhali: 3 associates of Shajahan Sheikh sent to 10-day CBI custody

Barasat (WB): A sub-divisional court at Basirhat on Tuesday remanded three alleged associates of the now suspended TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh to ten days CBI custody following their arrest by the central agency in connection with the January 5 attack on an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team.

The CBI, which summoned them to its office in Kolkata on Monday, had arrested them after questioning.

The additional chief judicial magistrate of Basirhat sub-divisional court, Indranil Karmakar, remanded the three - Didar Baksh Molla, Jiauddin Molla and Faruk Akunji to CBI custody for 10 days.

The central agency produced them before the court on Tuesday and prayed for their custody for questioning.

Didar Baksh Molla, a security guard at Sheikh's residence at Sandeshkhali, is the complainant in the first of the three FIRs registered by the West Bengal Police after the attacks.

Jiauddin Molla is the pradhan of the Sarberia Agarhati village panchayat.

All three are alleged to be close associates of Sheikh, who is considered the mastermind behind the mob attack.

The CBI had summoned nine close aides and associates of Sheikh for questioning in the case on Monday, according to officials.

The agency suspects that these nine individuals were allegedly part of the attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on January 5 and instigated the crowd to target the team.

Sheikh, whose role in the attack is under probe, is in the custody of CBI till March 14.

On an order of the Calcutta High Court, the CBI has taken over the investigation in the cases related to incidents on January 5, when ED officials were attacked by an around 1000-strong mob when they went to search Sheikh's premises at Sandeshkhali in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district in connection with the agency's investigation into an alleged ration distribution scam case.

Former state minister in Mamata Banerjee government Jyoti Priya Mallick, who held the Food and Supplies portfolio from 2011 to 2021, has been arrested in the alleged ration distribution scam case by the ED.

Sheikh was arrested by the state police on February 29, a day after the high court ordered that the CBI, ED or the West Bengal police could arrest him.