Sandeshkhali: TMC Minister compares sexual exploitation of women by Sheikh Shahjahan with ‘eating pie’, downplays the heinous crime as ‘mischief’

Hours after Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sheikh Shahjahan was arrested for assault on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials, party MLA Udayan Guha on Thursday (29th February) attempted to downplay the sexual exploitation of women in Sandeshkhali.

Guha, who serves as a Cabinet Minister for the Department of North Bengal Development in the Mamata Banerjee government claimed, “I am not sure if Sheikh Shahjahan has been framed as part of a conspiracy but charges against him are a mistake.”

“He has been falsely implicated. This has been happening ever since ED officials were attacked. “In the past, we have never heard these allegations against Sheikh Shahjahan,” the TMC leader gave Sheikh Shahjahan a clean chit.

While trivialising the gravity of sexual violence, Udayan Guha smirked, “I did not know that he liked to eat pie (referring to the sexual exploitation of women) at 12 o’clock in the night. I knew that desire for such mischiefs happen early or late in the night.”

Coincidentally, the TMC Minister has been accused of committing sexual harassment in his Vidhan Sabha constituency of Dinhata.

In a video that went viral on social media on 21st February this year, a woman was heard saying, “At around 12 am, Udyan Guha and his cronies called to the party office to make ‘pitha’. But I refused and questioned their absurdity of making pitha at midnight. Do they not respect us because we are women? Their fiancéce knows no bounds. I have been subjected to occasional harassment. I pleaded with folded hands, will they not let me live in peace? But they did not listen. Yesterday at around 4 o’clock the Panchayat and booth chairman came and instructed to me to attend tomorrow. But I refused saying that I have some dignity. I begged with folded hands. Their response was more violence.”