KOLKATA: Chhattradhar Mahato, the poster boy of the Dalit’s Lalgarh movement backed by Maoists in 2008-2011, and recently inducted in the ruling Trinamool Congress’s state committee, was arrested by NIA on Sunday.
Sources in the central agency said Mahato has been arrested in connection with the case of hijacking a Rajdhani Express train in 2009.
The arrest comes a day after the first phase of elections commenced in the state.
Mahato, who is in his late 50s, exercised his franchise on Saturday in Lalgarh after 11 years.
He had been earlier arrested during the regime of the Left Front and released almost after 11 years.
Sources in the NIA said that around 40 members of the agency went to Lalgarh and arrested him. He was produced in a special NIA court and has been remanded to custody for two days.
Mahato will be produced before the NIA special court in Kolkata on March 30.
Mahato was reportedly picked up from his house in Lalgarh when his family was asleep.
"They broke open the door and entered my house. We all were sleeping. They took away our mobile phones and then picked him up. Initially, we had no clue whether they were policemen or the BJP supporters," Mahato’s wife Niyoti said.
Mahato was arrested in 2009 under the UAPA and sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder case by a lower court. The Calcutta High Court acquitted him of the crime in 2019.
"Though he is a TMC leader now, Mahato’s arrest is politically motivated. What prompted the NIA to swing into action suddenly? What kind of serious evidence has the NIA found that he had to be arrested in a case registered 12 years ago?’’ asked Ranjit Sur, a member of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR).
On October 27, 2009, the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) members had blocked the Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express in Bansthala in West Bengal’s Jhargram district, demanding Mahato’s release after he had been arrested on September 26, 2009.
Mahato has earlier been interrogated by the NIA officials in the case. Other than the Rajdhani Express probe, the central agency is also investigating the murder case of CPI(M) leader Prabir Mahato.