The whole thing set off after a woman made a complaint against the councillor. As the police made for Narkeldanga station with him in tow, you could hear ‘chor, chor’ from the streets. With non-bailable charges to answer for, it is one of those cases that puts the question of accountability right back in the open.
Public anger spills onto the streets
You could see it as they were walking: residents along the way to the station didn’t let the KMC councillor pass without a word or an egg. It was a clear sign that this isn’t just a matter of party politics; the arrest has struck a nerve with people on the ground.
Police were on top of it once the complaint was in, but the way the crowd reacted tells you there are tensions that have been building for a while. Being a Trinamool Congress man, Samaddar’s run-in with the law was sure to be watched closely.
The complaint and the FIR
If you ask the police, they’ll tell you it started when a woman put in a complaint at Narkeldanga on Tuesday. Come Wednesday, the paperwork was done and they were out to make the arrest.
They have put him under some heavy, non-bailable sections – we’re talking attempt to murder and molestation. The FIR also makes mention of extortion, threats and some old ties to the kind of trouble we saw after the 2021 Assembly polls.
Link to the 2021 violence case
Then there is the matter of the alleged killing of Abhijit Sarkar, a BJP worker, where Samaddar is listed as an accused. Sarkar was found dead in Kankurgachi on May 2, 2021, of all days – the very day the election results came in.
His family says he was strangled and beaten up. Before he was, he had put out a video on Facebook saying he and even his pets were being made to face it. They have been insistent on what happened to him since the results were in.
From local probe to CBI chargesheets
It was the Narkeldanga cops who first got to work on the murder, until the High Court in Calcutta stepped in and passed it to the CBI. A chargesheet with 15 names was put in by the police to start with.
But in September of 2021, the CBI came out with a supplementary one, adding five more to the list. That includes Paresh Pal, the TMC MLA from Beleghata, and councillors like Papiya Ghosh and Swapan Samaddar.
Why the arrest matters now
Make no mistake, with this one, the number of KMC councillors in custody has hit 10. It is a figure that speaks to the kind of legal noose that has been tightening around political figures in West Bengal of late.
You can read the room outside the station on Wednesday: there is a lot of hard feeling about the post-poll violence, and for some, this is about seeing justice done in cases that have been left to fester.
What the family of Abhijit Sarkar says
Biswajit Sarkar, the victim’s brother, had little time for niceties after the news of the arrest. “He (Samaddar) has killed my brother, left us with nothing, and made an end of our family,” he said. “He and his people have been after me too. We have put in the work for my brother’s justice. Now they should be made to pay for it.”
Key developments so far
A rundown of the last 48 hours and how the case has been moving:
– Complaint from a woman on Tuesday
– An FIR in the books by Wednesday
– He is in on non-bailable charges
– Some egg-throwing and ‘chor, chor’ from the locals
– 10th KMC councillor to be taken in
What comes next
For now, he is at Narkeldanga and the process will be followed as per the law.
To the people in the neighbourhood, the scene of the egg-throwing was a way of venting over years of what they see as a free pass for some. For the ones in the CBI and the police, it is back to the evidence in the 2021 file.
The Trinamool has to deal with the fact that one of their own is in the dock. The opposition, you can bet, will be making hay of it when it comes to the state of law and order in the city.
This is why the 2021 violence is still a hot topic. An arrest on a Wednesday won’t put an end to the talk, but it does ratchet up the expectation for something concrete to come out of the courtroom.
