2 TMC leaders arrested in Mamata Banerjee’s drive against govt land grabbers
Police officials said two TMC leaders have been arrested between June 25 and July 5 by the Darjeeling district police on charges of grabbing land in Siliguri area
A drive launched by the Mamata Banerjee administration last month against the illegal occupants of government land in West Bengal has also seen the arrest of two leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party. Police officials said two TMC leaders have been arrested between June 25 and July 5 by the Darjeeling district police on charges of grabbing land in Siliguri area. A leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also been arrested from the same region.
Siliguri police commissioner C Sudhakar said, “The arrests have been made during the drive ordered by the chief minister (Mamata Banerjee). Investigations have started.”
Gautam Goswami, a board member of the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority and vice-president of the TMC unit at the Dabgram-Fulbari community block, was arrested on Thursday. According to police, Goswami is a close associate of Debasish Pramanik, the president of the same TMC unit, who was arrested on June 25.
“Pramanik has been expelled from the party,” TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.
Uttam Roy, a BJP leader who was the district secretary of the party’s peasants’ front (Kishan Morcha) till recently, was arrested on Friday for illegally setting up a resort on a piece of land vested by the government.
Sikha Chatterjee, BJP legislator from the Dabgram-Fulbari constituency, said: “A lot of people have illegally occupied government land. Let law take its own course.”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is also in charge of the state land and land reforms department. The department’s secretary, Vivek Kumar, held a virtual meeting with officials from all districts on Saturday and asked them to retrieve all the encroached land.
“The secretary said every officer must follow the rule book to the last letter,” an officer from a south Bengal district, who attended the meeting, said on condition of anonymity.
The drive has led to agitations in several parts of Kolkata and district centres where police have started evicting hawkers and shopkeepers from pavements and roads.
