State lodges complaint over illegal plant on govt land
The Statesman | 31 July 2025
The state land and land revenue department has filed a police complaint after the son of a local leader allegedly encroached upon vested government land in Ausgram, East Burdwan, to set up a fly-ash brick manufacturing unit. Officials from the department also installed a board on the land today, declaring it as government property.
Ziaul Sheikh, son of Indazul Sheikh—the block president of Trinamul Congress in Katwa’s Ausgram—has reportedly begun operations for the new brick unit on a 72-decimal plot of vested land located along the Guskara–Ilambazar Road, surrounded by farmland. According to land and land revenue (L\&LR) officials, heavy machinery was installed under a makeshift shade on the land last week.
On Friday, the department lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at Ausgram police station, seeking legal action against the alleged encroacher. Biswaranjan Mukherjee, additional district magistrate (land revenue) of East Burdwan, said: “A three-member inquiry committee recently investigated the matter, and following their report, a police complaint was lodged against the offender.”
On Saturday, officials put up a signboard on the disputed land stating it was government-owned. Indazul Sheikh, the TMC block president, is known to be a close aide of the local MLA, Abhedananda Thandar. When asked, Thandar said: “The police are currently investigating the matter.”
Ziaul Sheikh declined to comment, but his father, Indazul, defended him. “My son is not involved in this. He acquired the land from a sharecropper who claimed that he had been issued a land deed by the block L\&LR department.”
He added: “The said farmer is participating in the venture by donating his land for the factory.”