West Bengal police have arrested advocate Mofakkarul Islam, alleging he was a principal organiser behind the gherao of seven judicial officers in Malda’s Kaliachak-II block office, an episode that has widened concern over security, election administration and the state’s law-and-order response just weeks before assembly voting. Police said Islam and an associate were detained at Bagdogra airport on Friday while he was attempting to board a flight to Bengaluru. The arrest came two days after the judicial officers, including three women, were trapped for hours inside the Block Development Office amid protests over deletions from electoral rolls. Authorities have said the confrontation began on Wednesday afternoon and stretched late into the night before a rescue operation was mounted. The officers were part of a court-monitored adjudication exercise linked to objections arising from the voter-list revision process ahead of West Bengal’s two-phase election on April 23 and April 29.
Police and state officials have alleged that Islam incited crowds through speeches at multiple locations, helping turn local anger into a coordinated blockade that paralysed the proceedings. North Bengal police said three cases had been registered against him at Kaliachak police station, while the overall number of cases tied to the violence had risen to 19. Reports said at least 35 people had been arrested by Friday, including an Indian Secular Front candidate held earlier in the investigation.
Islam’s political profile has added to the sensitivity of the case. He is described by police and multiple reports as a Calcutta High Court lawyer who earlier practised in Raiganj and contested the 2021 assembly election from Itahar as an AIMIM nominee. Investigators said he had been under watch after the Malda violence and was intercepted with assistance from the Criminal Investigation Department and Siliguri Police. Some reports identified his associate as Ekramul Bagani.
The Supreme Court has treated the episode as more than a local flare-up. Acting on a letter from the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, the bench said the officers were gheraoed from about 3.30 pm and that, despite repeated appeals, effective state intervention did not arrive for hours. The court recorded that even food and water were not allowed to reach the officers and said their vehicles were attacked with stones, bricks and bamboo sticks after they were released around midnight. It issued show-cause notices to the state chief secretary, director general of police, Malda district magistrate and superintendent of police.
That judicial intervention swiftly altered the trajectory of the case. Following the Supreme Court’s remarks, the Election Commission transferred the inquiry to the National Investigation Agency, asking for an independent probe into the attack on officials involved in the electoral adjudication process. Reports on Friday said an NIA team had begun ground enquiries in Malda and was examining whether the violence was organised in advance and whether wider networks were involved.
At the political level, the fallout has been immediate and sharply contested. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee credited the CID for making the arrest before the federal team’s arrival and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to foment unrest in Malda. Opposition and rival parties, meanwhile, have focused on the collapse of local policing and the intimidation of court-appointed officers. The dispute has turned an administrative crisis into a politically charged confrontation over accountability in the run-up to the polls.
The underlying trigger remains contentious. Protesters in Kaliachak and neighbouring minority-dominated areas had accused authorities of wrongly excluding names from the electoral roll, touching off road blockades and anger over identity and disenfranchisement. The officers sent to the area were handling objections under the Special Intensive Revision exercise, part of a wider process involving hundreds of judicial officers and millions of claims and objections across the state. What began as a dispute over voter status escalated into an attack on the machinery meant to resolve that dispute.