Sheikh Shahjahan hid in the homes of his associates, hopping from one
island in Sandeshkhali to another, during his 54 days as fugitive, police have learnt by piecing together scraps of information and questioning the suspended Trinamul strongman and one of his aides.

The police version bears out what most Opposition leaders, from Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP to Mohammad Salim of the CPM, had been claiming from the beginning: that Shahjahan was very much in Sandeshkhali. The Opposition has persistently accused the police of having kept Shahjahan in “safe custody”.

“However, all this is preliminary information and needs to be cross-checked
with multiple sources,” a senior police officer told The Telegraph.

“We are not yet convinced with these claims till they are verified,” the officer added.

Immediately after the January 5 attack on a team of Enforcement Directorate officials who had arrived to raid his home, Shahjahan took shelter in an aide’s house in Akunjipara, which adjoins his home village of Sarberia, police sources said. He apparently stayed there for close to a week.

He moved out only after the Opposition parties and the governor became vocal about the January 5 violence and the political temperature began heating up in Sandeshkhali, a senior police officer said.

“Primary inputs reaching us suggest that he initially hid very close to his home. Then, as the Sandeshkhali incident became politically prominent, he began changing hideouts at regular intervals. He chose the homes of his confidants to hide in — that’s what is emerging at a very primary level,” the officer said. “These are claims that need to be verified.”

Police sources said that some of the information on Shahjahan’s days on the run — till his arrest on February 28 night — had come from his aide Amir Ali Gazi, who too had disappeared after the January 5 attack on ED officials.

Gazi was arrested in the early hours of February 29, shortly after Shahjahan, from a place near the Bengal-Jharkhand border after a police team tracked his mobile phone’s location.

An officer said Shajahan had told his interrogators that he had never left North 24-Parganas during his 54 days on the run but stopped short of providing the exact details of his locations across the different islands.

“Possibly, he is following the advice of his legal team while facing interrogation,” the officer said.

From his Akunjipara hideout, Shahjahan appears to have moved to an unknown shelter in the same Sandeshkhali-I block, allegedly with the help of his associate Shibaprasad Hazra, whose writ ran in the area, police sources said.

Over the next few weeks, Shahjahan stayed at the homes of his associates in various Sandeshkhali villages such as Manipur and Jhupkhali, they added.

The sources said that during his stay in Jhupkhali, Shahjahan learnt about the protests erupting against him in various Sandeshkhali villages and decided to shift to hamlets on the remoter islands such as Bhanga Tushkhali, Bholakhali and Dhuchnikhali.

“We are yet to verify all this,” a senior officer said. “Shahjahan hasn’t yet opened up the way we want him to. We can confirm how he spent his days as a fugitive only after he begins singing.”

When Hazra was arrested two weeks ago, Shahjahan was reportedly staying at an aide’s home in Jhupkhali and keeping in touch with his brother Sirajuddin, locally known as “Siraj Doctor”.

Shahjahan used different mobile phones and never made more than one call from the same number while in hiding, investigators have learnt.

Remanded in police custody for 10 days after his arrest, Shahjahan has been lodged at the CID headquarters in Bhabani Bhaban, Alipore.