Sandeshkhali: BJP worker surrenders in court in false complaint case

A court in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district on Tuesday remanded BJP worker Piyali Das alias Mampi to judicial custody after she surrendered before it over a criminal case lodged against her.

It is alleged that Das obtained the signature of a woman resident of Sandeshkhali on a blank sheet of paper, which was later filled up to appear as a complaint of sexual assault against local TMC (Trinamool Congress) leader Sheikh Shahjahan (now in CBI custody) and his associates Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar, both in police custody.

The additional chief judicial magistrate of Basirhat sub-divisional court rejected Das' bail prayer and remanded her to eight days' judicial custody.

The woman resident had filed a complaint against Das in Sandeshkhali police station, claiming that Das had got her to sign a blank paper and then filled it up with allegations of sexual atrocities against her.

The TMC and its leader and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee's claim that the 'Sandeshkhali movement' involving several local women may have been staged received a boost after a few sting videos came to light, at least one of them featuring local BJP leader Gangadhar Koyal, who can be heard saying that the movement was primarily orchestrated by state BJP chief Suvendu Adhikari, who switched from the TMC to BJP in the face of an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation against him on corruption charges.

Since then, a series of complaints has come to light, the most popular being that local women signed blank sheets of paper which were later filled with complaints of sexual harassment and rape.

What began as an agitation against land grabbing and forced labour by local TMC leaders primarily became a protest against alleged sexual atrocities perpetrated on local women by TMC leaders, with the state’s opposition parties and even governor C.V. Ananda Bose jumping into the fray to condemn police inaction and administrative negligence.

Das is one of those accused of filing the purportedly false complaints of sexual atrocities, and was issued a notice by the police after the woman resident filed a written complaint against her.

In her complaint, the woman stated that when the women's commission members visited to Sandeshkhali, Das took the woman from her home to meet them. Das then asked her to sign on a sheet of paper and sent her back home.

The woman has claimed that she made no complaint of sexual harassment, and that her actual complaint was about not having received payment for work done. But her statement was altered.

Following the issuing of the notice to Das by Sandeshkhali police station, Das remained untraced for several days before surrendering to the Basirhat court.

With agency inputs