Kolkata Correspondent:
Last night, late at night, former Canning East MLA and Sundar Ban Unnayan Board Chairman and Trinamool Congress General Secretary Shawkat Mollah was arrested from in front of the ITC Sonar Bangla Hotel near Kolkata in South 24 Parganas district. After two days of delay, the NIA announced that Shawkat Mollah would return.
Exactly 24 hours later, he was arrested from in front of the ITC Sonar Bangla Hotel near Kolkata. During the last assembly elections, a person was killed in an explosion in Bamunia area of Bhangar assembly constituency. After that incident, the NIA started an investigation. And after this incident, the name of West Bengal Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Canning East MLA and Sundar Ban Unnayan Board Chairman Shawkat Mollah was involved. In the last assembly elections, he contested from Bhangar assembly constituency on behalf of Trinamool Congress and lost to West Bengal ISF candidate Pirzada Naushad Siddiqui. And from there, various cases were investigated against him.
And in the Moukhali area of Canning East, he acquired about a thousand bighas of Matla river char and forcibly took it away from the farmers and built a huge resort for his son. The investigating officers of ED, CBI and NIA are investigating how he became the owner of crores of rupees in the last few years.
Influential Trinamool Congress leaders like Shawkat Mollah have been charged with murder. Pirzada Naushad Siddiqui, a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, said that he has created resorts by misappropriating undeclared assets and illegal river banks, and has been involved in hooliganism in the area, as well as in atrocities, attacks and torture on opposition leaders and workers.
However, his daughter Sabana Shawkat Molla and her family members have revealed how he was caught. They said that Shawkat Molla surrendered to the NIA on his own. The NIA officials said that Shawkat Molla has been taken into their custody.