The CBI took custody of Sheikh Shahjahan from the CID late on Wednesday evening, ending a two-day Centre-state tussle over the Sandeshkhali strongman that saw the matter reach the highest courts.
Around 7pm, a team of CBI officers left Bhabani Bhawan, the state police headquarters, with now-suspended Trinamul strongman Shahjahan for a health checkup at the ESI Hospital in Joka, over two hours past the 4.15pm deadline set by Calcutta High Court for the handover of custody.
On Tuesday, too, the high court had laid down a 4.30pm deadline for the custody switch, but the Bengal government had moved the Supreme Court against the order and a CBI team had to return empty-handed from Bhabani Bhawan after waiting for over two hours.
“Beginning early Thursday, we will start questioning Shahjahan about his alleged role in organising an attack on a visiting ED team in Sandeshkhali (on January 5). His statements will be recorded,” a senior CBI officer said.
“A separate team will go through the documents handed over by the CID. We would want to know his location on January 5 and match it with the tower locations of his mobile phones,” the officer added.
Shahjahan’s handover came on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a rally in Barasat, attacked the state administration for its alleged attempts to keep him in state police custody.
Shahjahan’s trademark swagger was missing when he was being taken to the Joka hospital for the mandatory medical test. Sporting a round-collar white T-shirt, a clean-shaven Shahjahan wore a subdued look as he walked out of the CBI’s car to the hospital, flanked by the agency’s officers.
The demeanour was in sharp contrast to the defiance his body language had exuded when he strode down the corridor of a Basirhat court on February 29 hours after his arrest.
“Shahjahan has possibly realised that his custody with the CBI will be way different from that with the state’s CID at Bhabani Bhawan,” a senior police officer said, refusing to elucidate why.
Several other senior police officers said that if the CBI felt that keeping Shahjahan in custody in Bengal could be a security threat, he could be moved out of the state, either to Bhubaneswar or to Delhi.
The ED had taken Anubrata Mondal, the Trinamul president of Birbhum who was arrested for his alleged involvement in cattle smuggling, to Delhi last March.
Shahjahan’s medical test at the Joka hospital was preceded by a similar test at SSKM Hospital under the monitoring of the CID, half an hour before the official handover. The Sandeshkhali strongman was brought back to Bhabani Bhawan after the tests at SSKM amid tight police security and later handed over to the visiting CBI team.
Earlier in the day, the ED had moved the high court to complain that the prime accused in the alleged Sandeshkhali atrocities was not handed over to the CBI on Tuesday despite an order to do so by a division bench led by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam.
While passing its order on Wednesday, the bench of Justices Harish Tandon and Hiranmay Bhattacharyya directed the state to hand over Shahjahan to the CBI by 4.15pm and told the central investigating agency to move court if this wasn’t abided by.
“The Supreme Court has not ordered a stay. Sheikh Sahajahan must be handed over by 4.15pm,” the bench said.
In the apex court, the state government termed the Calcutta High Court’s Tuesday directive for a CBI probe into the Sandeshkhali violence as “perverse, illegal and arbitrary” and said it “deserves to be set aside”. But the special leave petition filed by the state was not listed for hearing by the top court on Wednesday.
