West Bengal Police arrested the alleged mastermind of the Malda hostage crisis at Bagdogra airport in Siliguri on Friday nabbing him as he tried to board a flight.
The accused, advocate Mofakkarul Islam, is a lawyer from Itahar in Uttar Dinajpur who had been living in Kolkata. ADG (North Bengal) K Jayaraman confirmed the arrest.
Islam had been outside the Kaliachak-2 block office during the standoff, making speeches and urging the crowd to hold its ground. A video shows him directly taunting senior officials mid-protest. “Oye DM, oye SP who is the CID? Where is the IB? Where are you all? Come here,” he says. He had also run for the 2021 Assembly elections on an AIMIM ticket.
Three cases are registered against him at Kaliachak police station for allegedly inciting locals on Wednesday the day seven judicial officers, three of them women, were trapped for over nine hours inside the block office. Security forces eventually evacuated them, though there was an attempt to attack the vehicles during the operation.
Police have made 35 arrests so far, including an ISF candidate. Jayaraman said West Bengal Police will run a parallel probe alongside the NIA to determine if the incident was pre-planned and whether more suspects are involved. The NIA’s lead investigator, Sonia Singh an IPS officer of IG rank arrived in Kolkata on Friday morning to oversee the agency’s inquiry into the Kaliachak incident.
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The Supreme Court was blunt. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi called the state government’s handling a “criminal failure.” The court said authorities had prior intimation of the situation but still left the officers without food or water for hours. It described West Bengal as “the most polarised state,” saying politics had come in the way of compliance with court orders.
Show-cause notices went out to the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and DGP, asking them to explain the inaction. The court also directed the Election Commission to deploy central forces to protect judicial officers and keep the Special Intensive Revision process on track. It said it will monitor the probe. The seven officers had been held hostage by voters whose names were struck off electoral rolls during the SIR exercise.
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