The horror unleashed on Hindu women in West Bengal’s Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district, shocked the nation. Even as Hindu women in Sandeshkhali recount harrowing accounts of rape, sexual exploitation, and threats by TMC members, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, after maintaining a deafening silence, defended her party leader Shahjahan Sheikh and his aides. While many Hindu women in Sandeshkhali have been subjected to unspeakable atrocities by Shahjahan Sheikh and his aides, Mamata Banerjee cleared her aide and shamelessly blamed the BJP and the RSS. Banerjee claimed that Sandeshkhali had become an RSS bunker.
Mamata Banerjee, a woman herself and frequently hailed by the liberal lobby as a beacon of democracy, secularism, liberalism, and whatnot, gave a clean chit to her aide Shahjahan Sheikh, saying the women who accused Sheikh of land grabbing and sexual assault did so under coercion and that the police has no records of rape. She signalled that the women of Sandheskhali had not been wronged and that this was a BJP ploy to target TMC leader Shahjahan Sheikh.
Ahmed Hasan Imran: From having links with terrorist groups, inciting mob during anti-Hindu Naliakhali riots to TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP
A PAKISTANI and Founder of SIMI was Mamata Banerjee's choice for member of RAJYA SABHA.
— Devdutta Maji (President of SinghaBahini). (@MajiDevDutta) February 15, 2024
Why are we so surprised with Jihadi elements like Sheikh Shahjahan being so much influential in TMC, DONT WE REMEMBER MAMATA'S blue eyed leader AHMED HASSAN IMRAN.
She made Ahmed Hassan Imran… pic.twitter.com/MmTJ2kVqLp
The TMC supremo’s desperate defence of her aide Shahjahan Sheikh came as a shock for many, however, Mamata Banerjee has a history of backing anti-Hindu leaders to such an extent that even a Pakistani migrant and ardent Hindu hater made it to the Rajya Sabha-the upper house of Parliament. Ahmed Hasan Imran was reportedly born in a village in Srihatta, Sylhet, in East Pakistan and entered India from East Pakistan in 1970-71, before the creation of Bangladesh. Imran worked as Executive Editor of a Bengali magazine named “Kalam” in West Bengal. However, he later sold the magazine to Sharadha group chief Sudipta Sen.
Imran had also worked as an India Correspondent for the Bangladeshi daily Naya Diganta. It is worth noting that Naya Diganta is a mouthpiece of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.
During their investigations, the intelligence agencies found that Ahmed Hasan Imran had links with Pakistan’s ISI. He was also the founding member of the now-banned Islamist terror outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in Aligarh Muslim University. He also worked for Jamat-e-Islami (previously known as Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, JMB), Jamat-ul-Mujahidin and other Islamic terrorist organisations.
The intelligence report said that Ahmed Hasan Imran regularly visited Bangladesh after 1977 and met JMB terrorists. In 2001, Ahmed Hasan Imran attended a seminar on Islamic Philosophy organized by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in Howrah. Here JMB terrorist Golam Azam’s son said that Islam is greater than a nation. A year before this, Imran’s magazine Kalom organised a seminar attended by Jamaat terrorists Abul Kasem Ali and Abu Jafar.
SIMI and its anti-India activities
The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was founded in 1977 in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, as the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH). SIMI is said to have been founded to revitalise Jamaat-e-Islami’s older student arm, the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO). SIMI, which was run by the most fundamentalist and radical students, worked on the concepts of establishing Sharia and governing the country according to the Quran, propagating Islam, and carrying out “Jihad” for the cause of Islam. The organisation aspired to restore the Khilafat or Caliphate. It was accused of involvement in the 1992 Bombay riots, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, and the 2013 Bodh Gaya blast, as well as supporting Pakistan’s ISI. The outfit was outlawed in 2001.
2013 Naliakhali Riots/ Canning Riots and Ahmed Hasan Imran’s role
On 13th February 2013, a Muslim mob wreaked havoc on the Hindus of Naliakhali village over the alleged killing of one Maulvi Rohul Kuddus. The Naliakhali village came under the Canning Police Station precinct in South 24 Parganas district. A mob comprising around 10,000 people burnt 200 houses in the Naliakhali and neighbouring Herobhanga, Gopalpur and Goladogra villages. The mob attack had left several police officers severely injured. Reports say that a large number of the attackers were brought to Naliakhali from Kolkata in trucks.
A confidential document stated that Ahmed Hasan Imran was the mastermind behind the anti-Hindu violence in Naliakhali village when an angry mob set fire to the homes of innocent Hindus and looted many homes.
It was reported that a dozen Hindu-owned shops were plundered at the Jayanagar police station’s Baruipur area. Back then, violence was reported in the regions surrounding the Canning, Jayanagar, Kultali, and Basanti police station areas as well.
The then-district intelligence bureau (DIB) sent a two-page report to the district police superintendent (case no: 84, dated 19.02.2013, under sections 394/302/307/153A IPC and 25/27 Arms Act).
“Due to the instigation of said Ahamed Hossain Imran, huge Muslim young people also had been there from different places ie. Rajabazar, Metiabruz, Mograhat, Basanti and other places,” the report read.
“…the relation in between Ahamad Hossain Imran and Mr. Rahaman is daggers drawn. If we were able to meet Mr Rahaman, there is every possibility to collect more information and evidence as regards his and others’ clandestine activities which is vitiating the total atmosphere and leading to communal disharmony. 8. Ahamed Hossain Imran has since been collecting huge foreign money to reach their unreach by penetrating many places of State and clandestinely ushered such sordid picture of gross violence,” the report further added.
The DIB report unambiguously stated that Ahmed Hasan Imran was responsible for inciting Muslim youths and sending them to the affected area with bombs and other weapons. Just months after inciting a mob to burn the houses of Hindus and plunder their shops, Imran was rewarded by the Trinamool Congres with a Rajya Sabha membership just to garner support from the Muslim community.
When the Trinamool Congress can send a Pakistani national, accused of links with terrorist groups, and instigator of violence against Hindus to Rajya Sabha, the TMC chief backing another anti-Hindu Shahjahan Sheikh is not surprising at all.
Interestingly, other terror links, involvement in inciting violence against Hindus, Ahmed Hasan Imran’s name also came up in the Saradha Chit Fund Scam. The Saradha scam broke out into the open in 2013 when a Ponzi scheme run by the Saradha Group, a consortium of over 200 private companies, collapsed after collecting thousands of crores from over 15 lakh investors. Back in 2014, TMC MP Ahmed Hasan Imran was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate over his connections with Saradha Group owner Sudipta Sen. The ED officials questioned Imran about how he was running the Bengali daily Kalam.
Over the years, TMC has engaged in politics of appeasement to the Muslim community. Even though the victims in the Sandeshkhali case claim that married Hindu women from the area are picked up based on their age and beauty and violated night after night till the TMC men are “satisfied,” Mamata Banerjee dismisses these allegations as a BJP-RSS conspiracy. If the TMC can support someone like Ahmed Hasan Imran, it would not be surprising if the party nominates Shahjahan Sheikh to Rajya Sabha and whitewashes his deeds.
TMC appears to have embraced a policy of rewarding anti-Hindu elements with a thumb rule: the more anti-Hindu credentials, the better the reward.
