Gaffar Mollah: Mystery of the missing man

Mamata Banerjee may still be maintaining a distance from the Vedic Village cauldron but her deputy Partha Chatterjee stormed Ground Zero on Wednesday to launch an offensive to reclaim forcibly acquired land across the Rajarhat realty landscape.

Chatterjee, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, said during an impromptu rally outside Rajarhat police station that the Trinamul Congress would fight for farmers who were forced to give up their land.

“Nearly 500 acres have been wrested in New Town. We will organise a movement to get justice for the farmers who were forced to part with their land,” the Trinamul leader told the gathering of over 2,000 supporters.

Around the time Chatterjee was announcing Trinamul’s belated entry into the fray, the arrested assistant project manager of Vedic Village, Biplab Biswas, and fugitive land shark Gaffar Mollah’s aide Kalobabu, alias Abdul Hai, were remanded in judicial custody till September 10.

The defence lawyer said there was no evidence yet of Biplab being involved either in the firing that killed a youth before the Vedic Village flare-up on August 23 or the stockpiling of weapons on the premises of the luxury resort.

Amarnath Shroff, whose Diamond Group is a partner in the Kolkata Links project with Vedic Realty boss Raj K. Modi, was interrogated by the police on Wednesday afternoon.

“He was questioned about the disputed portion of Vedic Village where weapons were found buried. Shroff insisted that the site was Vedic Realty’s property,” an officer said.

Gaffar, who allegedly helped Modi acquire land by force and flaunted his political clout, continues to elude the police despite raids on possible hideouts at Haroa and Swarupnagar in North 24-Parganas.

“A family member told us that he could be hiding in his sister’s house. But we didn’t find him there,” an investigator said.