Anurag Thakur hits out at TMC, condemns atrocities in restive Sandeshkhali

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur has hit out at the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in West Bengal, accusing it of doing nothing to control the goons targeting innocent people in trouble-torn Sandeshkhali.

Thakur was speaking to reporters on the sideline of a function in Bhota on Friday night.

"The sad thing is that the West Bengal government is not doing anything... If women were not safe under the rule of a woman chief minister, then questions start to arise on the law-and-order situation in the state," he said.

An intense political row involving the BJP and the Trinamool Congress has erupted after several women in Sandeshkhali, in the state's North 24 Parganas district, accused the regional party's strongman Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters of "land-grab and sexual assault".

Fresh protests erupted in the village on Friday as locals torched the property of the accused Trinamool leaders and held demonstrations against the delay in arresting Sheikh. The political showdown also intensified with the Bengal police stopping women leaders of the BJP's Bengal unit from going to the trouble-torn region.

Earlier in the day, Thakur said that 'Ek Se Shresth' centres were working well to impart education to students. The centres are part of an initiative to ensure access to quality education and provide holistic development to students from all walks of life.

At present, 74 such centres are running in the Badsar assembly constituency in which more than 1,500 students were enrolled.