-The Times of India
Amid cries of conspiracy from Trinamool Congress leaders, it has not escaped the Police’s notice that Badshah’s one-time mentor and sworn rival, Selim Laskar, is also missing. News is that since the day people started dropping dead in Sangrampur. Police suspect Laskar has a role in the tragedy. Over the last 10 years, Badshah had finished off Laskar’s hooch business to wield absolute monopoly in Mograhat.
Badshah, aka Nurul Islam, was the last word in the area. A day after the Mograhat police firing on December 1, Badshah was reportedly seen visiting the victims’ homes with Union minister Mukul Roy, asking people to maintain peace and order. It was his political leaning that helped him evade police, his neighbours say. The hooch don – now Bengal’s most wanted man – started as a biscuit vendor on local trains. It was his ruthlessness and hunger for risk that earned him cult status in an area where crime is just another way of life. He is feared, revered, thanked and abused at the same time. The impoverished populace held him in awe because he "employed" more than 500 people. Hundreds others were indirect partners in his fast expanding hooch trade.
Badshah managed to establish a stranglehold on the trade and spread its tentacles to the remotest areas, where hooch is the only affordable drink. He turned it into a cottage industry. It’s prepared everywhere – in shacks along railway tracks, on village backyards and in storerooms, even out in the open. This week, he pushed his luck too far, or his past caught up with him.
On Thursday evening, locals stormed his house at Mahitala and stripped it bare. Whatever could be broke was smashed to bits. Whatever could be carried – furniture to valuables and even window frames – was taken away.