A 20-member CPI(ML) delegation led by party Central Committee member Indrani Dutta today visited Sandeshkhali. Other members of the delegation included State Committee members Chandrasmita Choudhury and Archana Ghatak, senior trade union leader Basudev Basu, Secretary of North 24 Parganas District Committee Subrata Sengupta, Secretary of South 24 Parganas District Committee Kishore Sarkar and several other leading activists of greater Kolkata region. The delegation formed several teams to cover nearly a dozen villages and talk to more than a hundred families. On the basis of the their interaction with the local people the delegation prepared a memorandum of demands and submitted it to the BDO and SHO of Sandeshkhali.

The delegation found tremendous anger among the local people against TMC leaders Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar and their boss Sheikh Shahjahan over rampant extortion and assault on people's livelihood and liberties including instances of harassment of women. The delegation therefore demanded strong administrative and judicial measures to inspire confidence among the people including arrest of all culprits, formation of women's cell in local police stations and payment of compensation to all victims of loot and extortion.

Sandeshkhali and adjoining areas have been a major centre of peasant movement and social harmony since the historic Tebhaga movement in the 1940s and 1950s. Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims have been living in peace and harmony for decades. The delegation condemned the BJP's attempts to use the people's anger in Sandeshkhali to spread hate and lies and promote its political agenda of communal polarisation.