Trinamool Congress complains to EC against 'unscrupulous raid' by CBI in Sandeshkhali

The

on Friday complained to the Election Commission against the Central Bureau of Investigation conducting a raid in West Bengal’s Sandeshkhali village allegedly to tarnish the party’s image amid the Lok Sabha election.

Earlier in the day, the CBI said that it recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from a house in Sandeshkhali, which the agency claimed belonged to an associate of suspended Trinamool Congress leader

Shahjahan Sheikh, The Indian Express reported.

The bomb disposal squad of the National Security Guard was called in to defuse explosives allegedly found during the raid.

The Trinamool Congress, in the complaint to the poll panel, said that the investigative agency did not send an actionable notice to the state government or the police before the “unscrupulous raid”.

The party said: “Further, the State Police has a fully functional bomb disposal squad which could have assisted the entire operation, if the CBI indeed felt that a bomb squad was required during such a raid. However, no such assistance was sought by the CBI.”

The Mamata Banerjee-led party said there was no way of knowing whether the weapons were in fact recovered during the search or whether they were planted by the CBI or the National Security Guard. It alleged that the BJP has weaponised central investigative...

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