Separate CBI teams on Wednesday spoke to villagers in Sandeshkhali, who had alleged land grabbing and torture of women by former Trinamool Congress strongman Sheikh Shahjahan and his associates.

The CBI sleuths also summoned Sheikh Sirajuddin, brother of Shahjahan, along with two others, for questioning.

The move comes within two days of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) informing a PMLA court in Calcutta that at least two Bengal ministers had benefited from Shahjahan’s land deals and received money from the now-suspended Trinamool leader.

One of the CBI teams visited the Shahjahan Market in Sarberia, which was a hub of the activities of the former Sandeshkhali strongman which was built by allegedly grabbing land parcels from unwilling villagers.

“There were several complaints about how a sprawling market complex was built on land that was forcibly grabbed from the villagers. We wanted to speak to some of the complainants and check their land records,” said a CBI official.

On April 12, the CBI had announced a dedicated email address (sandeshkhali@cbi.gov.in) as a platform for the people in Sandeshkhali to record their complaints following an order by a division bench of Calcutta High Court. Over the last few weeks, the central agency apparently received hundreds of complaints, with a majority of them on alleged land grabbing, followed by crime against women, sources said.

Armed with some of the complaints, the CBI officers visited the “Shahjahan Market” and spoke to several shop owners.

Local sources said Sheikh Farukh, a grocer in the market, was one of the shop owners, to whom the sleuths talked for a long time. Farukh was earlier summoned to Calcutta for his submission. Farukh refused to talk to the reporters on Wednesday.

“Apparently, some of those who lost their land were offered shops in the market as a kind of rehabilitation. We wanted to speak to some of these shop owners and understand the process of distribution of shops at the market,” a CBI officer said.

Sources said one such complaint was about the grabbing of a funeral ghat and a stretch of an Agarhati canal by Shahjahan and his associates in Chhoto Bitpal village in Sarberia-Agarhati 1 gram panchayat. The villagers had lodged the complaint through the email.