The recovery of arms and ammunition in multiple locations in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali on April 26 sparked a verbal duel between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, with the ruling party alleging that the saffron camp was orchestrating a plot to discredit the State during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP was quick to hit back, accusing the TMC of shielding terrorists and having a tacit understanding with anti-national elements.
The CBI seized arms and ammunition, including foreign-made firearms, during search operations at multiple locations in Sandeshkhali in connection with the January attack on an Enforcement Directorate team by a mob allegedly instigated by now-suspended TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh, officials said.
Teams of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the bomb detection squad, the National Security Guard (NSG), the central paramilitary forces, and the West Bengal Police were part of the search operations at the village—a riverine delta—on the fringes of the Sundarbans in North 24 Parganas district.
"We don’t know what has been recovered or not. Whatever the CBI is saying, we doubt it. The matter should be probed properly. The BJP is using central agencies to malign us. It can be a sinister ploy by the BJP to malign us during elections. It can be a well-designed campaign by the BJP," TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.
During the search, the CBI seized three foreign-made revolvers and one foreign-made pistol, one Indian revolver, one Colt official issue police revolver, one country-made pistol, 120 nine mm bullets, 50 cartridges of .45 calibre, 120 nine mm cartridges, 50 cartridges of .380, and eight cartridges of .32, the spokesperson said.
Senior BJP leader Amit Malviya said the arms haul is nothing but an act of terror, waging war against the nation.
"The CBI, during the raid, in connection with the attack on ED officials, recovered a huge amount of arms and ammunition from Sariberia, in Sandeshkhali. Mamata Banerjee, as Home Minister of West Bengal, must explain why the state is seeing a huge stockpile of illegal weapons," he posted on X.
"It is dangerous. NSG has been deployed but WB Govt has approached the Supreme Court to preclude the CBI from investigating the matter,” he said wondering why Mamata Banerjee is trying to “protect terrorists” who have stocked firearms in such large quantities.
BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said TMC’s appeasement politics has led to "anti-national elements" having a free run in the State.
The search was launched in connection with the three FIRs that the CBI had registered related to the attack on the team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials in Sandeshkhali on January 5 when it had gone to raid the premises of Sheikh in connection with an alleged ration scam.
TMC lodges complaint with West Bengal CEO
Trinamool Congress has lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal stating that the CBI had “deliberately carried out an unscrupulous” raid at an “empty location” at Sandeshkhali during the second phase of polling in the state.
The TMC said that while elections were going on at Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat Lok Sabha constituencies on Friday, the central agency carried out an “unscrupulous” raid at an empty location at Sandeshkhali.
The Trinamool Congress in a letter to the CEO on Friday said that media reports suggested that CBI had called in additional forces including the bomb squad of NSG.
“It has also been reported in the media that arms and ammunition have been recovered from a house during the such raid by the central agency”, it said.
The party said while ‘law and order’ fell completely within the domain of the state government, the CBI did not issue any notice to it or the police authorities before carrying out such a raid.
The TMC stated that the West Bengal police has a fully functional bomb disposal squad at its command, it could have assisted in the operation if the CBI indeed felt its requirement during the raid.
“However, no such assistance was sought. But, surprisingly, the raids had become nationwide news stating that weapons had been recovered during the raids”, TMC said.
The party also doubted “there is no way of knowing with certainty as to whether these weapons were indeed recovered during the search or whether they were surreptitiously planted by the CBI or NSG”.
The TMC alleged the entire exercise smacks of an effort by the CBI to create a nationwide hatred against the TMC and its candidates, during the election period, while feeding with the wrong information that the location belonged to a supporter of the party.
The letter said that the incident had again demonstrated the fact that the “BJP has weaponised” the central investigation agencies including the CBI to carry out a smear campaign against the party.
“It further iterated that in the absence of any representative of the state government, the purported recovery of arms and ammunition is possibly a ploy by the BJP in conspiracy with the CBI and the NSG to plant weapons in the site”, the party said in the letter.
