Sandeshkhali Women Meet President Murmu, Demand Central Forces Deployment

Six women from West Bengal's Sandeshkhali met President Droupadi Murmu here on Friday and demanded that central security force personnel be deployed in the area for the protection of women.

Addressing the media shortly after meeting the President, one of the women who has travelled with her toddler said she fears for her life when she returns home.

"I don't know what will happen when I return, we have been threatened that if we speak there will be repercussions," she said in an emotional tone.

She even collapsed after the press briefing.

Another woman said they have demanded deployment of central forces in Sandeshkhali to ensure their protection.

According to her, the President said that she is looking into the issue seriously.

The six women demanded justice in their memorandum to the President.

They came here with some RSS members and social activist Parth Biswas who called the situation in Sandeshkhali "very dire".

"Sheikh Shahjahan's modus operandi was to grab land of the poor people, then inundate it with salt water so that the land turns infertile and then use it for pisciculture," Biswas, who also heads NGO Center for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Support and Research, said.

He said 11 women from Sandeshkhali reached out to his organisation and six out of them have travelled to Delhi.

These six women would be holding a protest at Jantar Mantar on Saturday and Biswas called on the Dalit leaders to join the protest.

Sandeshkhali in West Bengal's North 24-Parganas district has been tense with a large number of women in the locality accusing TMC strongman Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters of "land-grab and sexually assaulting" them under coercion.

Sheikh, who had been absconding since January 5 when a mob attacked Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers during a raid at his residence in connection with an alleged ration scam, was arrested in the last week of February.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)