Mamata seeks out Dhaka envoy in Kolkata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked for a meeting with Abida Islam, Bangladesh's deputy high commissioner in Kolkata, even as she stood badly cornered over the Saradha scam and Opposition allegations of alleged links with the Jamaat-e-Islami across the border.

Sources in the chief minister’s office said the meeting might take place on Monday.

“Mamata is facing embarrassment over the issue after Rajnath Singh (the Union home minister) hinted that a probe is on. As there are reports that the Indian government is looking into it following a prod from Dhaka, the chief minister may ask the Bangladesh deputy high commissioner about her government’s views,” said an official.

Some newspapers in Bangladesh reported Sunday that the deputy high commissioner had been summoned by Mamata to clear the state government’s stand on Trinamool MP Ahmed Hassan Imran, whom the ruling establishment has tried to project as a “victim” of canards spread by the BJP.

Sources at the chief minister’s office and the Bangladesh deputy high commission said the meeting would be held as the Dhaka envoy in Kolkata had sought an appointment with Mamata.

Abida Islam completed her term in India in July and is expected to return to Dhaka later this month.

Sources said that Abida Islam had earlier sought appointments with Mamata but the chief minister had not met the Bangladesh diplomat in over two years.

“The chief minister tried to avoid a meeting with the Bangladesh diplomat as issues like sharing of the Teesta waters and the Land Boundary Agreement between the two neighbours would have cropped up,” said a state government source.

Although New Delhi has been keen on signing the two agreements, Mamata has opposed them.

Some sources said Mamata’s nod to meet the diplomat – at a time Imran’s alleged links with the Jamaat had become a topic of discussion on both sides of the border – fuelled speculation that she may have summoned the diplomat.

The alleged links between the Jamaat and Imran — one of the founder-members of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (Simi), an outfit that has been banned since 2001 — have become an issue in Bengal after Siddharth Nath Singh, the BJP national spokesperson, raised the matter during an election rally a few days ago.

Quoting some newspapers — published from Bangladesh and India — Singh had claimed that Imran used the Saradha money to fund subversive programmes of the Jamaat aimed at dislodging the Hasina government in Bangladesh.

Imran has denied the charges. He told The Telegraph on Sunday: “I left Simi in 1984 and I have nothing to do with the Jamaat.”

Trinamool Congress leaders like Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim denied the charges levelled against Imran and blamed the BJP for trying to polarise voters ahead of the by-polls that took place on Sunday.

“Imran is not a terrorist… He is being targeted only because he is from the minority community,” Hakim had said Saturday at the Trinamool Bhavan.

But Shahriar Kabir, a Bangladesh-based human rights activist, said: “We don’t know whether Imran had any role in sending money to the Jamaat. But there is no doubt that he was a Simi founder-member and he has had close connections with the Jamaat, which tried to overthrow an elected government in Bangladesh.

“I don’t know how senior ministers of the Bengal government can protect him by saying that he is being targeted because he is a Muslim.”

Saradha bail

A court in Kolkata's Alipore on Sunday granted bail to six Saradha accused against whom the CBI has started cases.

Of the accused, only Somnath Dutta, the former vice-president of Saradha’s media wing, was released as the others have multiple cases pending against them.

The other five are Saradha chief Sudipta Sen, his deputy Debjani Mukherjee, former media wing chief Kunal Ghosh, former group director Manoj Nagel and Sen’s driver Arvind Singh Chouhan.

The six were granted bail as the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) failed to file the chargesheet within 90 days.