Since his arrest 9 days in the past, Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chief Jahangir Khan was paraded by police by means of his stronghold of Falta thrice. Livid, his supporters, reportedly led by his spouse, staged protests, together with reportedly making an attempt to storm a police station to free the strongman.
The altering tides in Bengal are mirrored within the streets, with a number of TMC leaders and their associates, together with native heavyweights and muscle males, roaming publicly in areas of police and paramilitary affect, typically of their underwear and with handcuffs or cords tied round their waists. Movies of the parade went viral, exhibiting arrested leaders overlaying their ears, doing squats and publicly apologizing.
After such a public parade, a trip bench of the Calcutta Excessive Court docket pulled up the state Bharatiya Janata Occasion authorities and sought a report on the principles and circumstances behind the incident. The courtroom mentioned that whereas people might be arrested and prosecuted, they can’t deliberately defame or humiliate them.
Police have defended their actions as purely “investigative” and geared toward “reconstructing the crime scene.” Officers additionally mentioned off the file that they wish to break the aura of invincibility that surrounds some defendants.
A senior IPS officer warned that police have been strolling a high-quality line. “Except the fees are very severe, corresponding to terrorism, or there’s a danger that the defendant might flee, they aren’t even handcuffed. There isn’t any authorized foundation for parading the defendant with a rope tied round his waist.”
Legislation and order secretary Ajay Mukund Ranade didn’t reply to calls and messages.
TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee mentioned the get together plans to file a case in opposition to the police motion. “It is a full violation of Article 21 and a human rights violation,” he advised The Indian Categorical.
Akash Singh
On Could 13, 4 days after the BJP authorities got here to energy, Akash Singh was arrested by Golabari Thana police in Howrah, shaved his head, and escorted from the realm in a vest and underwear.
Akash, who gained fame because the ‘don of North Howrah’, has been charged in practically 20 circumstances, together with firing at a police officer, leaving a sub-inspector injured, and blasting throughout the 2021 elections, in addition to extortion and try and homicide.
An official mentioned regardless of quite a few circumstances in opposition to him, no motion may ever be taken in opposition to him as he’s near MLA Gautam Chaudhary. Police, together with in-charge Golabari Thana, refused to reveal particulars of the case or why no motion was taken in opposition to Singh to this point.
Requested about his relationship with Singh, Chaudhry mentioned he didn’t wish to discuss it. He hangs up and provides, “Akash was not close to me.”
A senior Howrah district official mentioned they have been investigating Singh as a part of a directive to “evaluation pending circumstances associated to highly effective folks”. Concerning the parade, a senior police official from Howrah Police Commissionerate mentioned police officers have been taking Singh to a number of “crime scenes”. “It is a part of the restructuring of crime.”
Addressing a current public assembly, BJP Howrah-Uttar MLA Umesh Rai referred to Singh’s arrest and added, “There was a time when he used to roam the streets with a convoy of 100 bikes and intimidate folks. In the present day, the identical man is being paraded with a rope tied round his waist. That is what the actual Ram Rajya seems to be like.”
Abhijit Roy
Roy, a neighborhood TMC youth chief from Kankurapara, North 24 Parganas, was arrested on Could 28. A lot of spectators witnessed Mr Roy being paraded by police with a rope tied round his waist and raised slogans.
Police sources mentioned Roy has been booked at Bijipur police station for extortion and can also be going through expenses of unauthorized stockpiling and reselling of supplies, together with “plastic buckets for municipal sanitation staff”. Locals converse of the affect he exercised in civic and administrative issues throughout the TMC authorities, together with figuring out beneficiaries of presidency tasks, allocating contracts and distributing housing items.
Roy, who went into hiding after the BJP got here to energy, was arrested from Mandarmani in East Midnapore.
Police are mum about any previous motion in opposition to him and haven’t been capable of contact native TMC leaders, together with Barrackpore MP and native chief Partha Bhowmik, who’s at present within the insurgent camp.
Jahangir Khan
Mr Khan, who was well-known in Falta, Diamond Harbour, particularly for his closeness to TMC quantity two Abhishek Banerjee, got here into the nationwide highlight for his public confrontation with law enforcement officials throughout the meeting elections. In a retaliation in opposition to the officer, TMC’s Falta candidate Khan likened himself to Pushpa, a personality from the blockbuster movie of the identical title, who “by no means bowed down earlier than anybody”.
Mr. Falta was the one seat to be re-voted. By the point the elections have been held, the bottom in Bengal had modified, and Khan, surprised, withdrew from the TMC marketing campaign. Within the TMC cut up that adopted, many blamed the get together’s kid-glove remedy of Mr. Khan as one of many causes for his or her disillusionment with the get together management.
Khan then went “lacking” and was lastly arrested by a particular activity pressure on the India-Nepal border on June 8.
Khan was initially charged with theft and tried homicide, and has since confronted a number of extortion and prison expenses.
Police officers mentioned the case in opposition to Mr. Khan, wherein he ransacked a businessman’s residence and beat him “inflicting severe accidents,” led to tried homicide expenses. “There are 10 to 12 different complaints and circumstances pending in opposition to him.”
In his ballot affidavit, Khan declared that there aren’t any prison circumstances in opposition to him.
Since his arrest, police have paraded Mr. Khan in Falta on three separate events, throughout considered one of which he was caught on video holding his ears and apologizing to the general public.
Police mentioned the parade was a part of the reconstruction of the crime scene and that Khan voluntarily coated his ears, did a squat and apologized.
Throughout a go to to Falta on Wednesday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari mentioned, “The rule of regulation is established in Falta… Irrespective of how large the mafia or dons are, the state authorities will educate them a lesson.”
Guddu Ansari
Ansari, a robust native chief from Kamalhati in North 24 Parganas and identified to be very near senior TMC chief and Kamalhati MLA Madan Mitra (considered one of whom Mamata Banerjee stays fixated on), was arrested on Could 31. Ansari was then handcuffed and paraded by means of Kamalhati.
Mr. Ansari is thought to have run a number of syndicates throughout corporations and brandished weapons to intimidate folks into submission. A Belgaria police official mentioned his parade would “ship a stern warning to criminals.”
“Whereas Mr. Ansari was arrested on expenses of extortion, there are a number of expenses in opposition to him. Aside from expenses of land grabbing, bodily assault and intimidation, we’re additionally investigating expenses of encroaching and renting out authorities land and committing acts of violence at Kamalhati Sagar Dutta Medical School and Hospital,” one other official mentioned.
Madan Mitra couldn’t be reached for remark.
Shamim Ahmed
Ahmed, often known as Boli and Gabbar and is believed to be near the previous TMC minister, is the district president of Shibpur Ward 36. His spouse, Shamima Bhanu, beforehand served as a councilor in the identical ward.
The TMC chief, who was arrested from Chembur in Mumbai on Could 21, was paraded by means of a crowded market with a rope tied round his waist by police at Sankrail in south Howrah. Police allege that Ahmed was concerned in an assault on a Could 7 post-match rally of Howrah Minority Cell chairman Sikandar Khan’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion, wherein three folks have been injured.
“Ahmed owns actual property value billions, together with workplaces. There are different expenses in opposition to him, together with extortion and blackmail,” a police supply mentioned. One in all his movies throughout the parade confirmed police ushering him right into a constructing that seemed dilapidated from the skin however had luxurious flats inside.
Ahmed has been arrested twice to this point. In 2024, he was detained by the NIA within the Ram Navami assault case, however was launched on bail. In 2018, he was arrested after two teams clashed in Shibpur.
Sources mentioned Mr. Ahmed had approached the Human Rights Fee about taking motion in opposition to the police.
Shahin Mora
Visitors residence guard Shahin Molla alias Sunny, who was identified to have nice affect in South Howrah as a result of his closeness to a former TMC minister, was arrested by Sankrail police on Could 23 on expenses of extortion of billions of rupees.
Central forces and Sankrail police then took him on foot by means of the Chaura Basti space of Central Howrah with a rope tied round his waist.
Police mentioned this was completed for “investigative functions”.
“The Supreme Court docket has mentioned that handcuffing or chaining an individual violates the dignity of the accused. Even within the case of terrorists, the courtroom mentioned it can’t be completed. The one check is whether or not the particular person can escape,” mentioned lawyer Sabyasachi Chatterjee, who represented the petitioner Umar Faruq Ghazi within the excessive courtroom and led the courtroom in searching for the state authorities’s response on the parade of leaders.
