By ordering Arabul Islam's arrest, Mamata Banerjee kills two birds with one stone

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently came up with a shocking declaration: that supari killers, hired by a political party, were after her, and had come as close as to do a recce of her 30B, Harish Chatterjee residence. In an interview to a TV channel she blurted out how an attempt on her life was being made, out of political desperation, by the parties in the Opposition. It was an outpouring of a sentimental Banerjee, who frequently plays the victim card to win sympathies.

Incidentally, when she was making the audience teary-eyed, around the same time a 26- year-old villager was being gunned down by her “party’s asset”, Arabul Islam, for walking in a political rally for independent candidates in Bhangar II.

The villager, Hafizul Molla, belongs to a particular community, and an attack on them at such a crucial juncture of panchayat polls left Banerjee unnerved. She immediately ordered Islam’s arrest as a damage control exercise or what she preferred saying — allowing charity to begin at home.

“Charity begins at home,” she smirked, dropping a broad hint that she is a chief minister first and then a party supremo, and that too one who doesn’t dither to discipline her very own "wild, unruly boys". But behind all this, what she was trying to do was divert attention from the gruesome killing of a supporter of Jami, Jibika, Poribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee, which had put up nine Independent candidates in Bhangar II in South 24 Parganas to fight the ruling party candidates.

Islam was arrested in a late-night operation. A combing operation revealed a huge cache of bombs, arms and ammunition hidden in the backyard of the accused. Islam is known for unleashing terror in South 24 Parganas.

Although the administration had arrested him and indicted him strongly on an earlier occasion, he was later given all the freedom to keep the area under the domination of the ruling party. And the “party’s asset”, as the chief spokesperson of Trinamool Congress, Partha Chatterjee, once called him, ensured it by all means by hiring goons from neighbouring states.

This particular area had been on the boil ever since a people’s committee — Jami, Jibika, Poribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee — backed by CPI-ML Red Star, was formed to oppose construction of a power grid in the locality. The committee was participating in the panchayat polls for the first time and had pitched nine independent candidates, who were enjoying the support of all Opposition parties as well as the CPI-ML Red Star.

These candidates, eight for gram panchayat and one for panchayat samiti, were fiercely resisted from filing nomination by the ruling Trinamool Congress, following which the court had ordered the State Election Commission to accept their nomination through WhatsApp, the first of its kind in the history of elections in the country.

The young man, Hafizul Mollah, like several thousands of villagers of Bhangar II in South 24 Parganas, was part of a march in protest of Islam’s high-handedness when bullets were pumped into him. Mollah succumbed on the way to the hospital.

The death of an innocent man in the last leg of the poll campaign, especially when the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court had given strict instructions of free and fair polls, came as a major embarrassment to the government. There was no screen for the administration to hide its face behind. Banerjee had to come out in the open and perform her raj dharma, and she wasted no time in asking police to arrest the accused.

Islam was jailed without being confined in the strict sense of the term. He had free access to meet his supporters and workers, who came in droves to execute his orders.

The ruling party breathed a sigh of relief. After all, it couldn’t have done it any better in killing two birds with one stone. By arresting Islam, on the one hand, Banerjee succeeded in giving the message that she as a chief minister was just, impartial, non-partisan and firm, and on the other, she gave Islam a shelter and a refuge from where he could operate peacefully and smoothly, without having to brush shoulders with the local people who were baying for his blood after the death of the young man.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)