Giving a blow to WB CM Mamata Banerjee's government, the Calcutta High Court today said the state should not be supporting absconding Trinamool Congress leader Shahjahan Sheikh, who has been accused by several women of sexual assault and land grab.  

While hearing BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari's request for permission to visit Sandeshkhali, also said it would ask Shahjahan Sheikh to surrender. 

The division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya allowed Adhikari to visit Sandeshkhali while rejecting the appeal of the West Bengal government. 

A single bench of the court allowed the Leader of the Opposition to visit the area on Monday. The Bengal government then challenged the order before the division bench.

“We will ask him to surrender, let's see what he does," the court said, adding, "What's more important is that the person who has masterminded the whole thing is still absconding." "He cannot be encouraged by the state dispensation. 

There is a prima facie material to show he has done damage...If one person can hold the entire population to ransom, the ruling dispensation should not support him," the court said. 

Several women in Sandeshkhali had accused Shahjahan Sheikh and his supporters of "land-grabbing and sexually assaulting" them under coercion.