A former minister of the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee government, Gias Uddin Molla, on Sunday filed a police complaint against her nephew and Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and a former Diamond Harbour police officer, alleging intimidation.
The former junior minister for minority affairs and madrasah education alleged that Mithun Kumar Dey, the former sub-divisional police officer of Diamond Harbour, took unwarranted punitive action against sections of Trinamool rank and file who were “unwilling to accept the autocratic manner in which Abhishek Banerjee ran the party”.
Molla, a three-term MLA of Magrahat Paschim of South 24-Parganas since 2011, was denied a ticket this time, allegedly because of Abhishek. His replacement, Shamim Ahamed Molla, is one of Trinamool’s 80 members in the 18th Assembly.
Molla’s complaints were filed at a local police station under the Magrahat Paschim constituency.
He said he did not protest before Suvendu Adhikari became chief minister, fearing retribution from his own party.
“I can do this now (go to the police) because I have full faith in the administration under the new chief minister,” said Molla, who was once Suvendu’s cabinet colleague.
He also said he confidentially raised the issues with both Mamata and Abhishek, but in vain.
Molla is among the dozens in the middle to lower tiers of the Trinamool leadership who have publicly criticised Abhishek and his management of the party, as well as Mamata’s inability or unwillingness to rein him in. They have largely blamed him for the electoral debacle that has raised serious questions about the party’s very existence in the near future.
Multiple senior leaders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Mamata’s refusal to accommodate or even acknowledge such views has exacerbated the problems.
Arrests
Moumita Bhattacharya, a Group D employee of Dinhata municipality, known to be close to Trinamool Congress leader and former minister Udayan Guha, was arrested on Saturday evening for allegedly approving fake building plans.
Gouri Shankar Maheswari, the former chairman of the municipality, who was allegedly involved in the same racket, remains at large.
Police raided Maheswari’s house on Saturday evening. He reportedly fled. Two of his daughters were called to the police station for interrogation and later released.
Moumita was on Sunday sent to three days in police remand by the Dinhata subdivision court.
The complaint of approving forged building plans by Dinhata municipality first surfaced in December 2025. The then civic body chairman Maheswari, head clerk Jagadish Sen, cashier Samrat Das and municipal worker Moumita were grilled by cops then. Later, Maheswari had to resign following numerous complaints.
Sources said that the specimen signatures of all the accused were sent to the previous state government in Calcutta, then, in the interest of the inquiry, but not much headway was made.
BJP MLA of Dinhata, Ajay Roy, said: “Police could not work independently then because of political pressure. Now, the police have been inquiring independently and no one will be spared.”
North Dinajpur police arrested a Trinamool karmadhakshya of the zilla parishad, Kartik Chandra Das, from his house under the Itahar police station limits on Saturday night. Police sources informed that one Kurban Ali of Lalganj village recently lodged a written police complaint against Das, accusing him of cheating him. Das is also the president of Trinamool’s Itahar block committee.
Homecoming
A central government employee, Shamim Akhtar, and his family members returned home to Bihinagar in Karandighi, North Dinajpur, after five years on Sunday with the help of the newly elected BJP MLA Biraj Biswas.
Akhtar, who is a postal assistant in Raiganj head post office, said local Trinamool leaders Lutfar Rahman, Firoz Khan, Rezaul Hoque, Sowkat Ali, Moazzem Hossain and others had forcibly occupied his 2.5 bighas of residential land. “They generated forged documents and tried torturing me and my family. We were forced to live in a rented house in Raiganj. We filed a case in Calcutta High Court. Although we got judicial orders in our favour, the local administration did not cooperative with us so that we could return. Now as the rule of law has been established in the state by the chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, we have come back home after five years with the help of the local BJP MLA,” Akhtar said.
BJP MLA Biswas said: “The former TMC MLA indulged goons in their land-grabbing activities. But now Ram Rajya has been established in Bengal. Such atrocities will not be allowed by the administration or the police. We are happy to help a helpless family.”
Additional reporting by our Cooch Behar and Raiganj correspondents