West Bengal polls: Three Congress workers arrested by NIA over Malda siege

Malda: For the first time, the NIA arrested two MPs and an ISF member after besieging judicial officials involved in SIR verification in Mothabari, Malda on April 1. Congress members Sahadat Hossain and Asif Sk were detained on Sunday along with ISF lawmaker Golam Rabbani. Local congressional candidate Sayem Choudhury was also questioned but later released. Preliminary findings by the National Intelligence Agency suggest the siege was pre-planned and involved a multi-layered conspiracy. Investigators found that Rabbani held a meeting the day before the violence and that Asif and Sahadat were present during the unrest. All three matters were produced before the NIA court in Kolkata. Sahada is a staff member of the Congress union INTUC. Asif is the district president of Chhatra Parishad, the youth wing of the state Congress. Rabbani is a member of the panchayat. Congress candidate Chowdhury claimed there was a link between the TMC and the Bharatiya Janata Party behind the arrests, calling the protest a peaceful demonstration against deletion of voters. TMC candidate Nazrul Islam denied the allegation. Before the NIA intervened, the Bangladesh police had opened 12 cases and arrested 49 people. Among them is ISF’s Mothabari candidate Maulana Shahjahan Ali.